Tim Smith Celebrates Eagle Milestone

By Henry N. Fairley IV

Tim Smith, Scoutmaster of Troop 401 recently had his 30th Eagle Scout, Kurt Stebe successfully complete the Rowan District Board of Review. Tim Smith’s story began 12 years ago, in 1995. At that time the Troop membership had dwindled from 20 to 2 youth. The Troop almost ceased to exist. Tim Smith took those two Scouts who were Stephen King and his son, Mathew Smith. Each week Smith would meet with these two youth in the Scout Hut behind Sacred Heart Catholic Church. They would go through each rank requirement in the Scout Handbook for 45 minutes and spend the rest of the time playing eraser hockey in the Scout Hut. As time progressed on, news of Tim Smith’s fun, relaxed way of promoting the Scouting program spread around the church and the community. It spread so quickly that, by January 1996 Smith had 35 youth as active members of the Troop. Another year of hard work would pass by and in 1997 Tim Smith with his faithful Assistant Scoutmasters Richard King and Hal Sutton would celebrate their first Eagle Scout Stephen King.

In early 1998 Smith had five more Scouts earn the Rank of Eagle Scout.  These Scouts were Jay Dooley, Steven Meseroll, Matthew Smith, Ryan Thomson, and Kevin Weber. Tim Smith encouraged his Eagles to continue their service to Scouting and 4 of his 6 Eagle Scouts went on to earn Eagle Palms. Stephen King, Jay Dooley, Ryan Thomson, and Kevin Weber earned the Bronze Eagle Palm, which represents earning 5 additional merit badges past the 21 required for the Eagle Award. Tim Smith then challenged his Eagles to continue further and give more service to the Troop. Jay Dooley, Ryan Thomson, and Kevin Weber took up the challenge and earned the Gold Eagle Palm, which represents earning 10 additional merit badges past the 21 required for the Eagle Award. Smith was pleased and challenged his Gold Palm Eagle Scouts to give even more service to the Troop, in order to earn the Silver Eagle Palm. Jay Dooley and Ryan Thomson became excellent leaders and earned the Silver Eagle Palm, which represents earning 15 additional merit badges past the 21 required for the Eagle Award. From Tim Smith’s example of service, he inspired Ryan Thomson to earn another Bronze Eagle Palm. Tim Smith would not hand out Eagle Palm’s again until 2007.

Due to Tim Smith’s spirit and dedication to the Scouting, by 2008 we had 24 more youth earn the Eagle Award. In his 12 years as a Scoutmaster, he had 90 Scouts in the Troop and among that total, 38 of Smith’s Scouts earned the Ad Altare Dei Religious Award. These Scouts gave service to the church and grew in their understanding of the Catholic Faith. In 2002, Tim Smith met with all the Scouts who had previously earned the Ad Altare Dei Religious Award, to see if they would be interested in earning the Pope Pius XII Religious Award. The Pope Pius XII Religious Award is the highest Catholic Religious Award offered to Boy Scouts. Interestingly enough, no one had earned this particular award, since Mike Shadroui in 1970. A class was set up and in the spring of 2002, 11 Scouts earned the Award. Then in 2004 another class was set up and was more successful than the previous one and 5 Scouts earned the Award. Tim Smith tells his Scouts to be responsible and show respect to everyone. He also advocates giving back to the community and helping others. This is one of the principles of the Order of the Arrow, Scouting’s National Honor Society.

In Tim Smith’s 12 years as Scoutmaster, 19 of his Scouts have been elected to the Order of the Arrow. Some of his Scouts continued their service to the Order, which resulted in 4 Scouts earning Brotherhood and eventually 2 dedicated Scouts had the Vigil Honor bestowed on them. Tim Smith always encourages his Scouts to give back to the community in the form of service hours and in 2007 the Troop completed a total of 2719 hours and 41 minutes of community service. Tim Smith is a truly dedicated leader to the Troop and his community.