National Eagle Scout Association

Many Eagle Scout leadership service projects involve building something—a nature trail, park benches, or a memorial garden, for instance. Aaron Edgel’s project took the opposite approach. He and his 25 volunteers removed a collapsed water tower—all 10 tons of it—from the Sanctuary Woods Preserve near Holland, Michigan.

The Eagle Scout trail has no end, and it leads to some surprising places. For Eagle Scout Dustin Koslowsky, a first lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, that trail led to Afghanistan’s Panjshir province. There, as part of a U.S.-led Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), the Fort Worth, Texas, Eagle Scout has spent much of 2008 and 2009 building a school for girls.

Lone Scouting began in 1915 as a way for boys from remote areas to participate in Scouting. Although it seems like a throwback to earlier times, the program is still available. Recently, one Lone Scout—John V. Ricciardi of Spring Hill, Florida—became an Eagle Scout.

It might have been appropriate if Mitchell Overby had only reached the rank of Life Scout. After all, the Life badge would have served as a fitting reminder of the February 2008 heart transplant that saved the Calvert City, Kentucky, resident’s life.