Eagle Grove boasts the first Boy Scout Troop west of the Mississippi, and after the organization opened to female scouts, the first girl’s troop in Iowa, which then Scoutmaster Emily Clausen organized in 2019. And now Eagle Grove also boasts the first female Eagle Scout in Wright County.. Continuing the local history of trailblazing in scouting begun over a century ago in 1911, by Howard Schoonover.
“There’s a lot of history in this town, in scouting,” said Rick Dawson, the current Scoutmaster of the local Boys Troop.
Renee Withers joined the girls’ troop right away, said current Scoutmaster of the Girls Troop Craig Voss.. She had already spent a few years in the Girl Scouts, but she hoped to take part in more outdoor activities, and to go horseback riding. And when her older brother Dwayne joined the Boy Scouts, grandmother Deb Withers (who has raised the four Withers siblings) chose to move them all into the Scouts BSA troops, since they were gender inclusive – which made the logistics easier.
And now she is the first female Eagle Scout in Wright County.
Her older brother Dwayne earned the rank of Eagle Scout two years ago, overcoming a struggle with autism to do it. But while Renee was proud of him, and said she had fun helping him, and had held leadership roles in the troop for years, she wasn’t really convinced at the time she’d make the same accomplishment. “I just never thought I could take it this far,” she said.
But a service trip, cleaning up and decommissioning old camping sites at Bighorn, in Wyoming really inspired her.
“When she came back from Wyoming is when I saw that spark. That, ‘hey, I want to be an Eagle Scout’,” Dawson recalled, noting, “She already had the merit badges by the time she went.”
And then, one day she realized there was a project she could take on as her Eagle Scout service project, that was close to her heart. An avid student of history, Withers had come to enjoy spending time at the Eagle Grove Historical Museum. She got the idea when telling a friend about it, who replied that she didn’t even know the old Eagle Grove Library building, a Carnegie historical site, had been turned into a museum. And it dawned on her why: there was no sign outside that said so.
So, she decided to install one. “I just wanted to do it because it was beneficial to the museum,” Withers said, but of course as a Life Scout at the time, it was the perfect Eagle Scout project for her as well. And so she set about raising the funds and designing the sign, having it produced, and installing it. By the time she was done, a beautiful new sign stood outside the museum, and there was new lettering on the entrance doors as well.
Then, at last, came her Eagle Rank Board of Review, last Tuesday night. From which she walked away one of a comparably small number of female Eagle Scouts in the world – and the first in Wright County.
But, believe it or not, she’s not done. “I think I have to,” carry on with scouting, Withers said, noting that she intends to keep earning merit badges right up to her 18th birthday, even though she doesn’t have to. And she’s been aggressive at it – by the time she was officially awarded the rank of Eagle Scout, she had also earned four Eagle Palms. An unheard of feat, even in a town with an unusually high rate of scouting achievement.
As of her Board of Review, Withers had earned 41 merit badges (including one she earned that same night), four Eagle Palms, was a member of the elite scouting group Order of the Arrow, had logged 265 hours of public service work, 100 miles of hiking, 68 nights of camping, had earnd the National Outdoor Achievement award (with two gold devices, for camping, and hiking), and had earned the National Park Service Ranger Award.
To put Withers’ accomplishment in perspective, only 6% of scouts worldwide ever achieve the rank of Eagle Scout, according to NothernStar.org. The rank is difficult to accomplish, requiring years of hard work and complex planning. It is a hallmark of achievers, known to open doors to those who earn it throughout life. But in Eagle Grove, thanks to the diligent efforts of Dawson and Voss, the number is well over ten times that many. In fact, Dawson estimates the number at roughly 75% of all the scouts they’ve had. But even those scouts don’t have four Eagle Palms from their first day holding the rank.
Asked about her future, Withers revealed her entrepreneurial streak, saying she plans to someday open a coffee shop and bakery. And she plans to continue to work with horses, a favorite pastime, and a skill she learned in scouting. And, she added, she plans to be an adult leader in scouting, “for the rest of my life.”
Asked what she would tell other girls who wonder if they too, can shatter the glass ceiling in scouting, and achieve the highest rank possible. “I would just say, ‘You’ve got this, you can achieve anything if you put your mind to it’,” Withers replied. “That’s what I did. If you believe it, you can do it.”
