The father of a Scout wrote the host of Discovery Channel’s ‘Dirty Jobs’ hoping Mike Rowe (An Eagle Scout) would post some words of encouragement to his son who is thinking about quitting scouting and has not yet attained the rank of Eagle Scout.
The original request:
Mike,
I’m not sure where I heard that you are an Eagle Scout, which brings me to my question. Could you PLEASE take a moment & post to my 13 year old son Kelby & encourage him to finish scouting (& anything else that’ll help with this?) Reason I’m asking is that he only lacks 1 1/2 – 2 years in reaching Eagle, but some of his buddies have got him to thinking scouting isn’t cool at his age.
Thanks much, Gary
Indeed Mike is infact an Eagle Scout, and he had a great response to the request addressed to Kelby, here is the first part:
Your Dad asked me to drop you a line and say something inspirational that might persuade you to dig down deep and find the determination to make the rank of Eagle Scout. It’s a reasonable request, from a father who obviously wants to see his son succeed. But here’s the thing – The Eagle Award is not really meant for people who need to be dragged across the finish line. It’s meant for a select few, and I have no idea if you have the guts to see it through.
You can read Mike’s complete response on his blog, Mike Offers a Potential Eagle Scout His Eagle Perspective.
Hat Tip: BoyandGirlScouts.com
Popularity: 8% [?]
November 17th, 2008 at 1:06 am
Thanks for the hat tip!
January 20th, 2009 at 8:17 am
Mike,
It is a good thing that you are doing for these Scouts. I am an Eagle and my soon to be 18 son is working on his Eagle Project only 44 days before his 18th birthday. Nothing like cutting it close. But, as you said, parents and others can’t make a kid become an Eagle Scout and can’t do the work for them either. My wife & I encouraged out son Tommy in all kinds of ways to complete his merit badges earlier but he was steadfast on doing things his way and on his terms. Well, yesterday, after he had finished getting his merit badge councilor’s final sign off on one of his last required merit badges, he said that it wasn’t as bad nor as time consuming as he’d imagined it would be. I told him that was what we had been trying to tell him. Anyway, he finally said that he wanted to get his Eagle because he wanted to prove to all of the nay sayers that he could do it and that he wanted to stop being a procrastinator; and I said that was a good enough reason.
Thanks for your encouraging comments in the above letter that now every troop in the country has probably read!
Tom Grubs
Eagle Scout
Sylvania, Ohio