Famous BSA Scouts

FAMOUS EAGLE SCOUTS

(Note: In the lists below, we've omitted "Former" from all titles.)

• Gary L. Ackerman - U.S. Representative from NY
• Bill Alexander - U.S. Representative from Arkansas
• Lamar Alexander - Lawyer, Governor of Tennessee, Secretary of Education, presidential candidate
• Neil Armstrong - astronaut, first man on moon, from Wapakoneta, OH
• Willie Banks - Olympic & world record holding track star
• Albert Belle - baseball player
• Charles E. Bennett - U.S. Representative from Florida
• William Bennett - Secretary of Education
• Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr. - Treasury Secretary & U.S. Representative from Texas
• Michael Bloomberg - Mayor of New York City, founder of Bloomberg News
• Bill Bradley - Pro basketball star and U.S. Senator from NJ
• James Brady - Press Secretary to President Reagan
• Stephen Breyer - US Supreme Court Justice
• Milton A. Caniff - Comic strip artist "Steve Canyon"
• Rear Admiral Jay M. Cohen, USN - Undersecretary of Homeland Security
• Barber B. Conable - President, World Bank
• John W. Creighton, Jr. - President & CEO of Weyerhaeuser Company
• William E. Dannemeyer - U.S. Representative from Cal.
• William Devries - M.D., transplanted first artificial heart
• Michael Dukakis - Governor of Massachusetts, presidential candidate
• LTC Aquilla James Dyess - WWII Marine, Medal of Honor recipient (deceased)
• Arthur Eldred - First Eagle Scout
• Daniel J. Evans - Senator and Governor of Washington
• David Farabee - Texas State Representative
• Robert Edward Femoyer - WWII Army Air Force Navigator, Medal of Honor recipient (deceased)
• Rear Admiral Eugene B. Fluckey - WWII Submarine Commander, Medal of Honor recipient (deceased)
• Thomas Foley - Speaker of the House and U.S. Representative from Washington
• Gerald Ford - U.S. President (1st Eagle to be President) (deceased)
• Steven Fossett - Flew solo nonstop around the world in a hot air balloon and in an ultralight airplane, won the Chicago to Mackinaw boat races, competed in the Iditarod dog race, and competed in several iron man triathlons, and among other things lived the Scouting mottos both Cub and Boy Scout by doing his best and being prepared (deceased)
• Murphy J. (Mike) Foster - Governor of Louisiana
• Robert M. Gates - Director of Central Intelligence (CIA) and Secretary. of Defense
• Richard A. Gephardt - U.S. Representative from Missouri, Minority Leader
• Steve Holcomb - Olympic Gold Medal winner -4 man Bobsled
• Admiral Jay Johnson, USN - Chief of Naval Operations
• Michael Kahn - stage director, Oscar winning film editor
• William Henry Keeler - Roman Catholic Cardinal and Archbishop of Baltimore
• Larry Kellner, CEO - Continental Airlines
• Dr. Alfred Kinsey - insect biologist, human behavior researcher
• John Koncak - basketball player
• Sheldon Leonard - actor, director, producer, 3 time Emmy award winner
• Steven W. Lindsey - Astronaut - He was the pilot for STS-95 when John Glenn returned to space as a Senator. He made Eagle in Troop 161 in Temple City, California.
• Gary Locke, Governor of the State of Washington, the first Chinese-American Governor in the contiguous United States, and selected as a Distinguished Eagle Scout by NESA
• James Lovell - Navy pilot and astronaut, President of National Eagle Scout Association. Flew on Gemini 7, 12 & Apollo 8, 13 At one time had seen more sunrises than any other human being
• Richard Lugar - Senator from Indiana (presidential candidate 1996)
• J. Willard Marriott, Jr. - President, Marriott Corp.
• CDR William McCool, USN - Astronaut, Pilot of U.S. Space Shuttle Columbia
• W. Walter Menninger - Physician, civil servant
• Michael Moore - Author and filmmaker, nominated for an Oscar for "Bowling for Columbine"
• Jim Mora - NFL football coach
• Oswald "Ozzie" Nelson - actor
• Sam Nunn - U.S. Senator from Georgia
• Ellison Onizuka - Astronaut aboard the U.S. Space Shuttle Challenger (deceased)
• Steve Oswald - Astronaut, Navy Rear Admiral
• Mitchell Paige - walked 200 miles to enlist in Marines on his 18th birthday in 1936, retired as a Colonel, Medal of Honor. Presented his Eagle award in 2003 after it was verified that he'd not received it in 1936 because he'd joined the Marines. (deceased)
• Francis J. Parater - nominated for Sainthood by Diocese of Richmond, VA. died at age 22 in 1920 in Rome, while at seminary.
• H. Ross Perot - Self-made billionaire and presidential candidate
• Rick Perry - Governor, State of Texas
• J. J. Pickle - U.S. Representative from Texas, proudly displayed his Eagle plaque inside his office (deceased)
• Samuel R. Pierce - Former Sec. Housing & Urban Development
• Frederick Reines - Nobel Prize winner in Physics
• Gary Rogers - Chairman and CEO of Dreyer's Ice Cream
• Jim Rogers - CEO of Kampgrounds of America (KOA)
• Mike Rowe - Star of "Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe" on the Discovery Channel
• Donald Rumsfeld - Secretary of Defense
• Harrison Salisbury - Pulitzer Prize winning author
• James Sanderson - Vice Admiral, US Navy (Ret), Deputy Chief US Atlantic Fleet
• Dr. Benjamin Lewis Salomon - WWII Army front line surgeon & Medal of Honor recipient (deceased)
• Jeff Sessions - Senator from Alabama
• William Sessions - FBI director
• Sam Skinner - Secretary of Energy during the Bush administration and now CEO of Commonwealth Edison
• Steven Spielberg - Movie producer, from Scottsdale, AZ, made a movie of his troop while getting Photography MB. Helped to design requirements for the cinematography MB.
• Wallace Stegner - Writer and college professor, won Pulitzer Prize in 1972 for "Angle of Repose"
• Percy Sutton - Attorney, Chairman of the Board of City Broadcasting Corp.
• John Tesh - TV celebrity and pianist
• Meldrim Thomson, Jr. - 3 term governor of New Hampshire (deceased)
• Leo K. Thorsness - Vietnam War Air Force Colonel, POW, & Medal of Honor recipient
• Sam Walton - Founder, Wal-Mart (deceased)
• Togo West - Secretary of the Army and Secretary of Veterans Affairs
• Edward O. Wilson - Pellegrino University Professor and curator of entomology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
• Jay Zeamer Jr. - WWII Army Air Force pilot & Medal of Honor recipient (deceased)
• Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. - Admiral, Chief of Naval Operations

Eagle Facts

Just over 2 million boys have reached Eagle in 100 years (15,000 a year, roughly). Currently, around 4 of every 100 boys that joins Scouts make Eagle--that's less than 1% of the male population.

FAMOUS SCOUTS, but not Eagles

• Henry Aaron - Baseball player, home run king - the Mobile Press Register quoted Henry as saying that the greatest positive influence in his life was his involvement in scouting
• Richard Dean Anderson - taught Reptile Study, actor
• Charles F. Barber - CEO of American Smelting & refining
• Jimmy Buffett - musician and singer
• George W. Bush - Cub Scout, President of the United States
• Bill Clinton - Cub Scout, President of the United States
• Walter Cronkite - newsman
• Harrison Ford - Life, taught Reptile Study, actor "Indiana Jones" & "Han Solo"
• Bill Gates - Life, founder of Microsoft Corp.
• Richard Gere - Actor
• Andy Griffith - Actor
• David Hartman - TV personality
• Dan Jansen - Olympic Gold Medal - Speed Skating
• Bruce Jenner - Olympic Gold Medal - Decathlon
• John F Kennedy - First US President who was a Scout - See his note to his father about an allowance increase for Scouting
• Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. -Civil rights leader
• Branford Marsalis - Life Scout, Jazz musician
• Bruce Edward Melnick - Astronaut
• Norman Y. Mineta - Mayor of San Jose, CA, Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Commerce. Japanese-American, spent WWII in an internment camp in Wyoming, where he met Alan Simpson. (see below)
• Sir Paul McCartney - Rock N Roll, Beatles (UK)
• Jim Morrison - Rock N Roll
• Barack Obama - President of the United States
• Merlin Olson - Pro football player and sportscaster
• Eddie Rabbitt - Country & Western singer
• John Ritter - actor, son of singer Tex Ritter (deceased)
• Richard Roundtree - actor
• Nolan Ryan - pro baseball pitcher
• Alberto Salazar - Life, 3 time winner NY marathon
• John Schneider - Actor, Dukes of Hazard
• Alan Simpson - US Senator from Wyoming. - Boy Scout in Cody Wyoming, where he visited fellow Scouts in a Japanese-American internment camp, and met Norman Mineta (see above), who became his life-long friend. Helped pass the Japanese-American Compensation Act.
• Howard K. Smith - TV newsman
• Mark Spitz - winner of 7 Olympic Gold Medals in swimming
• James Stewart - actor, USAF Brig. General, B-17 pilot in WWII
• George Strait - Singer
• George Takei - actor, Mr. Sulu of Star Trek
• Joe Theisman - Life, former QB, Washington Redskins
• Peter Uberroth - Cub Scout, Commissioner of Baseball
• Paul Winfield - Cub Scout, Actor

We have NOT listed Fictional Scouts here.  See http://usscouts.org/scoutfiction.asp for that information.

Except for Paul McCartney, who was a Scout in the United Kingdom, we've only listed men who were members of BSA. There is a fairly comprehensive list of famous women who had been in GSUSA, on the web site of the Girl Scout Council of Greater New York at http://www.girlscoutsnyc.com/~gscgny/webmaster/Website/ALUMNAE/FamousGirlScouts.html

Contributors to this file

• Joseph Bork
• John Carlson
• John Creighton
• Mike Derleth
• Steve Eisele
• Randy Everette
• Shawn Getten
• Jerry Gross
• Jennifer Hooper
• Chuck Huber
• Bill Kennedy
• Fred Kimball
• Doug Marks
• Bill Nelson
• Michael Opitz
• Douglas Shearer
• Jim Schlichting