Commentary | 7
JANUARY 2021 ■ www.ReporterNewspapers.net
Around Town
Joe Earle is editorat-large at Reporter Newspapers and has lived in metro Atlanta for over 30 years. He can be reached at joeearle@ reporternewspapers.net
Fighting a deadline in pursuit of an Eagle
Avery Maxwell knew from the start that she wouldn’t have time to spare. She was in a race with the calendar. There would be lots to do, and, in the beginning, she figured she’d have only about two years to do it. She had to wrap up everything before she turned 18. Her 18th arrives next month, on Valentine’s Day. “It’s so close, yet so hard,” the Dunwoody High School senior said recently, “because there was so much work to do and so little time to do it.” Before she started in 2019, she charted what she had to do on an online task board. She figured out her deadlines along the way and determined she could just make it in time. So, she set to work. This month, Avery is scheduled to wrap up her race to become one of the first girls in the country to be awarded an Eagle Scout rank by the Boy Scouts. Yes, you read that right. Boy Scouts. If all goes as planned, Avery will join the inaugural flight of girl Eagles. In February of 2019, the Boy Scouts of America changed. The organization, renamed Scouts BSA, for the first time allowed girls to join. That meant girls, in girls-only troops, could earn BSA merit badges, go camping as BSA scouts, and earn the BSA’s highest rank, the Eagle Scout. Avery wanted in. Her two older brothers had been Boy Scouts and had reached Eagle rank, and she wanted to do the same. She had tried Girl Scouts for several years when she was younger, but quit, she said, after deciding that program wasn’t for her. Continued on page 8 ROBERT MAXWELL
Avery Maxwell works on the observation platform she planned and built at the Dunwoody Nature Center to earn her Eagle rank through Scouts BSA.
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