Talk:List of Eagle Scouts

Criteria and formatting These are guidelines that have been accepted by consensus This is a list of Eagle Scouts who are considered notable for their actions throughout their life. While many other lists abound, they are usually oriented towards a certain point of view, either positive or negative. This list strives to maintain the fundamental Wikipedia principle of a neutral point of view. Criteria for inclusion and removal To be included on the list, the person must be a verified Eagle Scout and must be notable. If the Eagle Scout already has a Wikipedia article then he immediately meets the notability standard and should be added to the list with a link to the article and a citation. An appropriate citation is required to be added to the list. Development of an article is encouraged. Any Eagle Scout is considered notable if he has received the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Eagle Scout Award, or the the Silver Buffalo Award; in order to receive any of these awards, he must by definition be notable. A verified DESA recipient list is at: [1]. A person can meet the notability test for either positive or negative reasons. Adding or deleting an entry simply because they are a "fallen Eagle" is POV. If an Eagle Scout with an article is thought to be non-notable, then the article should be recommended for deletion per articles for deletion. If the article is deleted, then the Eagle Scout in question is considered to be non-notable and the entry will be removed from the list. Fictional Eagle Scouts should be added to Scouting in popular culture. Uncited entries Eagle Scouts who are added without citations are subject to speedy removal. Upon discovery, the entry should be immediately tagged with {{fact}}. An attempt will be made to contact the editor who added the entry. The notability tests will be applied by a concerned editor; if notability is determined and a citation can be determined, the citation will be added. If notability cannot be determined or no citation can be found, and no contact is made by the adding editor, the entry shall be removed. These boilerplates may be used to notify an editor that an entry they added is in question: You added an entry to the List of Eagle Scouts. Please see the Criteria and formatting guidelines on the talk page. You will note that the entry needs a proper citation and must pass the notability test. If the entry is not cited within two days it will be deleted per the guidelines. If you desire to identify yourself as a Wikipeida editor who is an Eagle Scout, please use the Eagle Scout userbox. For some examples of userboxes, take a look at the user page of Gadget850 or Rlevse. For a full listing of Scouting-related userboxes, see Scouting. Entry formatting The entry should be formatted as: Gold eagle image then a space; if they are a DESA recipient name space (deceased); if they are dead semicolon Description: Use a complete sentence with the initial letter capitalized and ending with a period. Wikify, but don't repeat previous links. Put current positions first; use former or retired for previous positions unless they are deceased. Citations: Citations use the cite.php format and reference template. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Scouting/References. Articles When updating articles, include any citations and the appropriate categories. Current BSA people categories are: Alpha Phi Omega brothers; Alpha Phi Omega honorary brothers; Distinguished Eagle Scouts; Eagle Scouts; Fictional Eagle Scouts; Silver Buffalo awardees Lists Lists of Eagle Scouts abound on the web: many are inaccurate. Do not use these as citations or a test of notability unless the entry can be independently confirmed. The DESA list has been compiled by an editor from an official BSA report, is considered to be accurate and may be used as a citation. Lists from Boy Scouts of America are considered canon and may be cited. this includes: "Astronauts and the BSA". Fact sheet. Boy Scouts of America. Retrieved March 20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help) "The Congress and Scouting". Fact sheet. Boy Scouts of America. Retrieved March 20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help) Terry C., Lawson (2005). "Erroneous Eagle Scouts Letter". Eagle Scout Service, National Eagle Scout Association. Boy Scouts of America. Retrieved June 09. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help) This document from the BSA specifically notes that Cronkite, Fonda and Stewart are not Eagle Scouts.

Arthur Shelton Inclusion

Arthur Shelton, I have to say, is the first Eagle Scout I have ever heard and his actions provide an interesting perspective of how Eagle Scouts should be viewed (as not all scouts are good). More info of his actions are listed here: http://www.parallelpac.org/murder.htm. I can say that he is a very notable Eagle scout. I had never heard of Eagle Scouts until I read that article. 74.103.8.249 19:11, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

His only claim to notability is that he committed a murder. There are thousands of those a year. Notability for wiki purposes seems borderline to best to me.Rlevse 19:30, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Not all Eagle Scouts are notable and not all murderers are notable. Add the two and they are still not notable. There is a list on Rotten.com. Several cannot be verified one way or the other and the others like Altstadt just aren't notable. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 20:15, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Eugene Cheatham

Anyone feel this entry would not be notable?

• Eugene Cheatham, Jr (deceased); Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, one of the Tuskegee Airmen, fighter pilot during World War II and the Korean War, received Eagle Scout at age 88.
  • John Wilkens (2004-08-07). "At 88, veteran to get Eagle Scout award". San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved 2006-01-11. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  • "Eugene Calvin Cheatham, Jr". Arlington National Cemetery. Retrieved 2006-01-11. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

--Gadget850 ( Ed) 18:20, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I think he's notable because of his military career, but I disagree with him being awarded Eagle because he chose not to go to the BOR. Him not making it in 1930 was his own doing, no one else's. But, BSA approved it, so it's a done deal.Rlevse 18:52, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

 Done --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 12:12, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Legacy of Honor

There is a website for the book. Suggest that the reference link be changed. [5] --Gadget850 ( Ed) 15:25, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

done.Rlevse 15:26, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Kevin Sterne

He may not make notability, but Kevin Sterne was the young man whose photo was on the front pages as he was carried out of Norris Hall at Virginia Tech. He saved his own life when he applied a tourniquet fashioned from an electrical cord after he was shot through the femoral artery.[6] --Gadget850 ( Ed)

Kevin Sterne has an article, but it is up for deletion. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:28, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

It was redirected to a list.Rlevse 02:09, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Dan Beard

Should Daniel Carter Beard be considered an Eagle Scout? He was awarded a gold Eagle Scout badge in 1922. Peterson's The Boy Scouts: An American Adventure has a photo on page 27 of Dan Bead and B-P. This was taken in 1937 and shows both of them wearing the Silver Buffalo and "Uncle Dan" is quite clearly wearing an Eagle Scout badge. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:27, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Good question, ask Terry Lawson at BSA if he's on the Eagle roll at National, that'd settle it for sure.Rlevse 15:16, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Mitt Romney

He is not an Eagle Scout, see [7] and two separate threads on his talk page of his article. Rlevse 22:22, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

• Email from Romney's staff dated 7 June 2007:

Hi Randy,

Thank you for contacting the Romney for President Campaign. Governor Romney has been involved in Boy Scouts; however he is not an Eagle Scout.

Again, thank you for your interest. Please feel free to contact us again if you have any further questions/comments regarding Governor Romney.

Sincerely,

Sarah

Romney for President Rlevse 10:04, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Berger

I added Prof. Lee R. Berger to the list of notable scouts and he was subsequently deleted. He is an explorer for National Geographic and the Reader in Human Evolution and the Public Understanding of Science at the University of the Witwatersrand. He won the Honor Medal for saving a life from the Boy Scouts of America. You can see his web site at www.profleeberger.com I believe he should be included.

Gladysvale 12:38, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

As noted in the talk box at the top of this page, a citation is required for each entry. You are welcome to add him with the cite. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:40, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

The citation you added has no mention of Eagle Scout. I tagged the entry pending a proper reference.--Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:54, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I almost give up but not quite - I thought I had a proper reference!!! He is also listed in Wikepedia under Lee R. Berger (which I highlighted) and is noted as an eagle and honor medal winner. What did I do wrong that got the listing eliminated as "no citation" - I'm not clear - help!!!

Gladysvale 15:49, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Your link at [8] has no mention of Berger being an Eagle Scout, so it is not a good reference. I did a Google search for "Lee R.Berger" and "Eagle Scout" with no results that are not from this article or derivatives. Your reference does not have to be a web article- if you have a journal article, newspaper article or the like that states that Lee R.Berger is an Eagle Scout then that is a good reference. If you can find anything of that nature, we can help you format it properly. Sorry to be so picky, but this is a Featured List and represents the highest of Wikipedia standards (and a lot of hard work on the part of several editors). --Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:10, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Found a proper reference from his article and added him to the list. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:03, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

That same ref also says he has the Honor Medal. His article needs lots of work. Rlevse 14:15, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Jon Powers

Jon Powers is an Eagle Scout according to his site. [9] Unfortunately, there is not much left of his article after I chopped out the material copied directly from news articles. I suggest we wait and see how this article plays out. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 02:16, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

James Dale

The article on James Dale was recently deleted and redirect to Boy Scouts of America v. Dale. Per the guidelines, article deletion means removal form the list. Any discussion? --Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:32, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

A unique case, he's a key in the legal article and named in the line. In the list or not is okay with me. FYI, I still say Sheehan doesn't need an article/in the list, his mom was famous, not him.Rlevse 16:53, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Oldest person to achieve Eagle Scout rank

Here's a new article on Walter Hart, an 88-year-old WWII veteran who was just honored as an Eagle Scout. Quite interesting; I wonder if he might be considered notable enough to include on this list, though he doesn't have a wikipedia article as of yet. Dr. Cash 04:37, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Very similar to Mitchell Paige who was 84 when he got the Eagle awarded. Paige has an article because he was a famous Marine who was awarded the Medal of Honor in WWII. Personally, until more is known Hart, I don't think this warrants an entry here just because of age. Perhaps on the Eagle Scout article itself though, which maybe a para could be added to the development section about the age history of Eagle Scouts, it's changed over the years. Adults used to able to get it outright.Rlevse 11:27, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

If you don't think being oldest to do something isn't notable in and of itself, Hart more than meets two of WP:BIO criteria: there are Primary source articles (secondary is the guideline minimum) and he achieved an award. Having a separate article is not necessary for inclusion in wikipedia. I believe there are guidelines especially for people notable for a single event to only be included in the article on that event. --J Clear 11:57, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be saying Hart did more than be the oldest Eagle. What is it? There are now about 1.8 million Eagle Scouts. It is true having an article is not required, but being notable is (see guidelines above on this talk page too). Keep in mind this is a featured list too. I'd like to get more input from others here as to list inclusion; if all he did was be the oldest Eagle, that would not meet article criteria though. Rlevse 12:12, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

ALSO--Eugene Cheatam was 88 when he got the Eagle, see thread above on this very same talk page, unless we determine exact birth dates and date of Eagle awarded, Hart might not be the oldest. It certainly muddles the waters.Rlevse 12:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

If we wanted to include the "oldest known person" to actually *earn* Eagle, then it would be Eugene Cheatham. As I understand it Paige and Hart had earned Eagle as youths, but simply had not been presented the award; Cheatham had to go though the board of review that he had missed as a youth. While the length of time is unusual for Paige and Hart, many Eagle Scouts have a court of honor well after earning Eagle. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 12:44, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

The oldest person to have been awarded Eagle was technically Philo Farnsworth, born in 1906 and awarded in 2006. Unfortunately, he had died in 1971. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 21:31, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Spielberg description

The Spielberg description including his criticism of BSA's discriminatory membership practices was documented and sourced and cannot be removed just because it is unfavorable towards BSA. I am placeing it back in his description.Lasalle202 03:18, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Justinm1978 is correct, this is not the place for details of views on political stances. Removal has nothing to do with being unfavorable towards BSA, if that were true, people would attempt to remove it from his wiki article, which already discusses and footnotes his stance on this. This is a list for highlighting Eagles who have significant career achievements, not highlighting views on political or social stances. I've added the footnote you found to his wiki article, which already had one footnote on this.Rlevse 11:20, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

These descriptions are short and intended to summarize the person. They are generally based on the article lead-ins that summarize the points of the article. How is this one particular action central to his life and career? --Gadget850 ( Ed) 12:27, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Spielbergs relationship to the BSA board is in the introductary paragraphs of his article. It is central to his relationship to BSA and as a documented statement is improper to remove.207.69.137.38 13:39, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see anything about that in the intro to his article. It's not mentioned until the first body section. Making false statements won't help you at all.Rlevse 13:46, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe you are confusing the first section of the body of the article with the lead-in. Thanks for pointing this out, as that material does not belong under the Early life section. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:00, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Fixed in the Spielberg article. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 22:52, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

If only items from the lead in are acceptable, then I will remove the reference to Speilberg instituting the Cinematography badge, since that is not part of Spielberg lead in either.207.69.137.7 23:06, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

If the three of you are in such advert agreement, then it appears your mind accepts the premise. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 23:15, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

No I am not in agreement. But if that is the current stylistic guide, then let us apply it equally.207.69.137.35 01:33, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

At four to one, your team has the lead. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 02:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Acutally, it's a dynamic Earthlink IP, so he gets a different IP each time, so it's really the same person, so he's actually outnumbered.Rlevse 02:40, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

People to investigate and potentially add

http://www.rotten.com/library/culture/eagle-scouts/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.129.251.50 (talk) 16:58, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

rottendotcom is not reliable and doesn't cite sources. Rlevse 17:04, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

We went through rotten.com and nndb.com ages ago— it is in one of the talk page archives. We used them as a list to investigate, but we rejected using them as a reference. There are folks that are listed on each that we do not include simply because they really aren't notable. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:10, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Has anyone given any consideration to the youngest Eagle Scout? I have heard that NESA/BSA does not support the finding of the youngest Eagle Scout in history. Perhaps the more reasonable title is the youngest "known" Eagle Scout. Has the Guinness Book of World Records recognized this honor? There seem to be so many claims of who is/was the youngest. I think this is a title that people are more curious about than the list of "most famous Eagle Scouts." MATTEOCHAN

You're right, there's no way to verify that. I personally know people that made it at just shy of 13 years old. BSA doesn't track by race either. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:11, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Correct. Unless there was documentation provided for the "youngest documented" - which might be outside the scope of this wikiProject. I thought is was worth a try, since I was 11 years, 7 months. Hard to beat. Matteochan (talk) 00:21, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Can you give me a timeline on that? Under the current system, you'd have be at most 10 y 7 m at Star and since you can't join prior to 10 y 6 mos... — Rlevse • Talk • 00:30, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

No problem. One of the things that helped me was that I attained Arrow of Light at around 9 years, 8 months. I checked all the dates in my Scout book. Born July 28, 1982. Became a Boy Scout June 11, 1992 (9 years, 10 months, 15 days). Tenderfoot / 2nd Class attained 12 August 1992 (two boards in the same night, 10 years, 16 days). 1st Class attained: 9 September 1992 (10 years, 1 month, 13 days). Star attained: January 14, 1993 (10 years, 6 months, 14 days). Life attained August 11, 1993 (11 years, 15 days). Attained Eagle: March 16, 1994 (11 years, 7 months, 17 days). 75.71.10.14 (talk) 12:16, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Links

While cleaning up references, I am finding a few dead links. I am marking these with {{dead link}} until we can get them fixed. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 13:47, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Lead-in

Should the lead-in be changed to indicate that the list also includes people who were notable prior to becoming eagle scouts (eg. Henry Nicols)? meamemg 01:42, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

don't think so, it doesn't matter if they made Eagle first or not. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Not sure if I was clear with what I was saying. Right now the article indicates that it is a list of "men who have become notable after earning Eagle Scout" (emphasis added), which is not true for all of the entries on the list. meamemg 20:45, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

ah, okay. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:52, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Article name

Frankly, I don't care which name we use. The problem is that drive-by editors change the name and don't bother to clean up. Here are the problems with the recent rename to List of notable Eagle Scouts (Boy Scouts of America):

• Double redirects need to be fixed
• The article lead needs to be updated to the new name
• The talk page archives need to be moved; the move process does not move sub-pages
• The todo page needs to be moved

Note: I documented this issue at Help:Merging and moving pages after the last rename here

Arguments for either name:

• List of notable Eagle Scouts (Boy Scouts of America): Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style:

When either of two styles is acceptable, it is inappropriate for an editor to change an article from one style to another unless there is a substantial reason to do so. . . If an article has been stable in a given style, it should not be converted without a reason that goes beyond mere choice of style.

• List of Eagle Scouts (Boy Scouts of America): Per the naming convention at Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists), list titles should not include notable. The guideline here is not well written, but I would guess that since all WP content is supposed to reflect notability that including the wording is redundant

The list was just renamed in November and I had to do a bunch of cleanup and now we are at it again. When we decide which name to lock down, we need to ask that the other be protected so we can stop this foolishness. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 20:00, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Discuss:

• question We can actually lock it permanently? Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 20:15, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

We can "salt" the redirect so that it requires an admin to make a move. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 20:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

This move was made by a user that is only on wiki for a month. The correct thing to do here is remove "notable". LEt me know when we're ready and it'll only take a few minutes. Is it worth posting this faux paus on his talk page? I almost just did it. — Rlevse • Talk • 21:08, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I just updated Help:Merging and moving pages, as it amazingly did not mention that you just might need to update the lead sentence of the article. I will let the editor know the issues. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 21:17, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Done. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 22:08, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

• Move it to the desired name and salt the earth. --evrik ^(talk) 23:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Have we figured this out yet? --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 12:50, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

The guideline says not to use "notable" in list titles a they perforce must be notable to be on the list. I'll rename it back to without the "notable" and fix links I find. Let me know if I miss something. — Rlevse • Talk • 14:39, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Edit notice

I added an edit notice that will now appear at the top of the article page when editing. Please let me know if it needs to be tweaked. The message is located at MediaWiki:Editnotice-0-List of Eagle Scouts (Boy Scouts of America) and uses {{editnotice}}. This is a new feature, but the MediaWiki message pages can be edited only by an admin. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 16:35, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Eagle Scout medal CFJ3.png

The image Image:Eagle Scout medal CFJ3.png is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
• That this article is linked to from the image description page.

The following images also have this problem:

• Image:Hillcourt and Baden-Powell.jpg

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --08:38, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Chris fixed already. Good. — Rlevse • Talk • 10:11, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Did Hillcourt too.14:20, 14 September 2008 (UTC)