Jonathan Baumann of Golden Eagle Lodge was awarded the highest rank in Boy Scouting – that of Eagle Scout – on April 24, 2010. He is the eighth member of the Baumann family to earn this honor.
This is a banner year for the Boy Scouts of America as it celebrates its 100th anniversary. That makes it an especially memorable year to earn Boy Scouting’s highest rank–that of an Eagle Scout–and one young man in Cook County has done just that.
In an April 24, 2010, Court of Awards ceremony at St. John’s Catholic Church in Grand Marais, Jonathan Baumann of Golden Eagle Lodge became one of the 4% of Boy Scouts to be awarded the Eagle rank. His father, Dan, one of seven members of the Baumann family who had already earned the rank, said in a later interview in their home, “It’s a rank to cherish, it’s a rank to be proud of.”
Boy Scouting is even recognized by the U.S. Armed Forces as a useful precursor to military service, Dan said.
At the ceremony, Jonathan was given the Eagle Scout challenge to exhibit honor, loyalty, courage, and cheerfulness. An Eagle Scout is expected to be devoted to community, to country, to his own ideals, and to God. He must exercise courage to face physical danger, but he must also exercise courage to stand up for what is right. He serves as a protector of the weak and the helpless and aids and comforts the oppressed. He defends his own rights, but he also stands up for the rights of others.
Jonathan had to earn 21 merit badges along the path to becoming an Eagle Scout, completing required projects on topics such as citizenship in the community, the nation, and the world and personal financial management as well as projects he chose–things like fly fishing, leather making, and wood carving.
What does Jonathan consider the hardest thing he has had to do as a Scout? Complete his Eagle Scout service project. Jonathan’s project, which had to be something that was “good for the community,” was to refurbish the lawn at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Grand Marais, which was old and had become difficult for the frail and the elderly to safely navigate.
Jonathan had to design the entire project, planning each step from start to finish, soliciting volunteer labor, documenting each step, and seeing it done to completion–but he couldn’t do the physical work himself. He had to demonstrate leadership and organizational skills by directing other people to carry out various tasks and perform the manual labor.
Dan said that while it was hard to hold himself back from helping Jonathan, he had to let his son do the entire project himself. Every Eagle Scout has earned his rank, Dan said. It is not handed to him.
Jonathan spent over 42 hours from start to finish on his Eagle project, but in the process he recruited and supervised 18 volunteers who collectively spent almost 185 hours laying sod. Many hands make light work, however, because the job was done in 3 ½ hours.
Jonathan got the community involved even before the sod was laid, securing donations from local businesses– dirt from Edwin E. Thoreson, Inc., grass seed from Buck’s Hardware, chips and pop from Johnson’s Foods and Holiday, and Subway sandwiches sold at cost and paid for by his parents. Bethlehem Lutheran Church’s only expense was the sod.
Jonathan said that partway into the project, he had some doubts about whether he could pull it off, but then things started to fall into place and he realized he could do it.
Eagle Scouts tend to do a lot of volunteering throughout their lifetimes, Dan said, for their neighbors and community organizations alike.
Boy Scouts is an organization that involves the entire family, Jonathan’s mother, Theresa, said. She has participated in a lot of Scouting activities through the years. Jonathan’s brother Zach became an Eagle Scout two years ago, and his sister Brianna was a Girl Scout. Theresa spent an anxious hour-and-a-half in January waiting outside the door where Jonathan was interviewed by a board of review after completing all the tasks required for his Eagle rank. The requirements for achieving Eagle rank have actually been increasing in difficulty over time, she said.
What part of Scouting has Jonathan found to be most fun? “I would say the fishing and camping trips,” he said. Another highlight was in the summer of 2005, when he attended a Jamboree in the Commonwealth of Virginia where the heat and humidity were high. He was one of 40,000 Boy Scouts to whom President George W. Bush delivered an address.
A highlight of Dan’s years as a Boy Scout was also a Jamboree–the 1975 World Jamboree in Norway.
Jonathan is a senior at Cook County High School. He is planning to start a four-year criminal justice program at St. Cloud State in the fall and hopes to become a game warden.
Theresa said Jonathan’s cousin, a law enforcement officer in St. Cloud, uses the 12 points of the Boy Scouts Law in his work. Theyrequire a Scout to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.
Jonathan is the third Cook County Boy Scout to earn the Eagle rank within the last five years. Three more local Scouts are currently planning their Eagle projects. Jonathan’s cousin Josh is the next—and ninth—Baumann to be working on his Eagle rank.
Leave a Reply