GRANT SCARBORO

Reporter

Recently, the Boy Scouts of America organization made changes to its policies, which will allow older girls (11-17 years of age) to join its ranks.  The organization will also be dropping “boy” from its namesake.

According to the New York Times, the decision to was likely made in an effort to increase the amount of members, since the organization has gone down by approximately 1/3 since the start of the millennium.

Scout BSA’s sister organization, the Cub Scouts, which is for children ages 7-10 years will also start allowing girls to join the ranks. The Girl Scouts, unhappy with the change, have condemned the move as “brash and careless” according to authorities.

Several Boy Scouts from North Harford High School have varying opinions on the adjustments.  Junior James Dilworth believes the organization should keep its old name in spite of the change.  “I don’t know because I’ll be aging out very soon so it really didn’t affect me. I think we should keep it Boy Scouts. I really don’t think these act as an equal like Girl Scouts, I just figured it should be kept as Boy Scouts.”  Sophomore  Tyler Sambor agrees. “I don’t really have an opinion about the changes, I mean it won’t affect us.” .

Another scout, sophomore Jason Ramsland, sees the change as a very complicated situation. He thinks that while there are many apparent positives to this, there might also be some hidden negatives; and that we will just have to wait for it all  to play out.

Both of these young men are currently working on big projects in order to earn the position of Eagle Scout. “I’ve been in Boy Scouts for about six years. I have almost finished my Eagle project. My project was a fire pit for the members of the Bethel Church,” said Ramsland.

Dilworth, said his Eagle Scout project is “…building a bridge over a marshy area that is for a 4H camp in the Rocks…”.

Ramsland’s project was divided into two parts: mulching around all 17 bushes that surrounded the church and removing 120 flag holders placed at the graves of veterans in a cemetery and replacing them with “better hand-made flag-holders” according to Ramsland.