It started when a young Dwayne Withers saw a flier in middle school, when he was in 6th grade, that said "join the Boy Scouts". He took it home to his grandmother, Deb Withers, who was raising him.
"Yeah, do it," she encouraged him. "I thought it was a great way for him to make buddies," she said. It's not really the response many people caring for a young boy with autism would give, but Deb was betting on Dwayne to beat the odds.
Scoutmaster Rick Dawson knew it would be a challenge, but he resolved to help. "Deb brought me a young man who could not tie his shoes, button a shirt… and then she asked me to teach him knots, camping, fire building and how to split wood with an axe and pocket knife safely." Dawson set his mind on doing all that, and more.
Deb's prediction that scouting would be a great way for Dwayne to make buddies turned out to be prophetic, as Dwayne became one of the guys in the close knit troop. But he found more than just buddies, he found a role model as well, in his scoutmaster's son, Mark Dawson, who Dwayne looked up to.
Despite the assumptions many might have made, Dwayne rose through the ranks of the Boy Scouts at a steady progression under Dawson's tutelage. Along the way, he mastered many life skills most of us take for granted that he hadn't when he started.
But it wasn't always easy.
Of all the merit badges he attempted, the horsemanship merit badge was one he just couldn't get. Not that he didn't try. "It kinda sucked," Dwayne said, with a chuckle and an infectious grin. "That horse was the boss," Deb added, smiling.
Another was canoeing. At Boundary Waters, at the High Adventure summer camp, Dwayne tried hard to earn his canoeing badge. Working with two other scouts at all times in the 3 seater canoe, Dwayne tried to take all three positions. He refused to quit, trying over and over for eight full hours. In the end, he said, he did learn to canoe, if not expertly. Another badge that's eluded him, if only barely. So far.
The problem was in fine motor skills. The same thing that originally kept him from being able to button up a shirt, this boy who by then was regularly wearing a boy scout uniform, buttons, kerchief, sash and all. And that problem came up again, when Dwayne sought the swimming merit badge.
Dawson petitioned the Boy Scouts council to make an exception, and substitute another challenge for Dwayne. "The Boy Scouts of America doesn't just make an exception," Dawson explained gravely, "they want to know why." So Deb had to get a medical explanation written out by Dwayne's doctor, as to why he couldn't swim, or for that matter ride a bike (or a horse), due to the motor skills issues he was facing at the time.
The Boy Scout Council granted Dawson's request to give Dwayne a different challenge. But they certainly didn't make things any easier for him. Instead of the swimming merit badge, which involved swimming about 4 laps in a pool and various diving and swimming exercises in the nice, cool water, the council put a much more daunting task in front of Dwayne. The hiking merit badge, which involved hiking 70 miles in one week.
Dwayne and Dawson weren't deterred, though Dwayne admitted that when he was about to take that first step, he was thinking "oh my God, this is gonna take a long time." And the Boy Scouts of America weren't alone in making things challenging, Mother Nature got in on the act too. "It was during the summer, it was hot," Deb explained. "It rained on us," Dawson said, his face making clear that he didn't mean just a sprinkle, "the derecho came right over top of us!" Dwayne put it more graphically, "the rain felt like hard candies hitting me," he related. It didn't stop them, and although they were just as soaked as they'd have gotten in any pool, and traveled miles further than they would have had to swim, they completed the 70 mile hike.
Hiking was not a merit badge that eluded Dwayne, and he rose all the way up the ranks to Star Scout, the third highest rank in scouting. Dawson told him he could make it all the way. Dwayne took that to heart, and pushed further, achieving the rank of Life Scout, which left only the highest rank in scouting, the Eagle Scout. A coveted rank that is the mark of many leaders in American history, and considered as good as any youthful achievement possible, on a resume later in life.
Dwayne settled on an Eagle Scout project, to help kids who end up in emergency shelters with their mothers, as victims of domestic abuse. "They were going through a rough time," Dwayne said, as to why he chose that project.
Dwayne got help from volunteers at the Eagle Grove Evangelical Lutheran Church, where the troop holds its meetings, who sewed blankets for the kids. Everything else, Dwayne gathered, and his family paid for out of their pockets. Coloring books, crayons, frisbees, notebooks and more. A lot went into each bag.
"Dwayne set up an assembly line, and had a whole bunch of scouts come and help assemble them," Dawson said. It may not have taken long to put the bags together with all that help, but the whole project, from planning to shopping to spearheading the sewing effort, to packing the bags took Dwayne over 63 hours from start to finish.
Now 17 after just five years in scouting, Dwayne is Eagle Grove's latest Eagle Scout. But Dawson says he's the one who learned the most from the experience. "I learned a lot more than Dwayne did in his Eagle Scout Project," Dawson said, referring to Dwayne's determination and overcoming seemingly impossible challenges. "I learned a lot more from this young man earning his Eagle Scout rank than he knows."
"I would highly recommend to kids to join scouting," Deb, who has 3 other scouts at home, concluded, "Boy Scouts, or Girl Scouts."
