Boy Scouts

Mary Ann Scully , of West Friendship, has been named the 2011 recipient of the Howard County Good Scout Award presented by the Baltimore Area Council, Boy Scouts of America. She is currently employed as the chairwoman, president and CEO of Howard Bank. Scully, who is chair of the Maryland Bankers Association, was one of the founding officers of Howard Bank and headed its organizing committee before the bank opened in 2004. Deborah Valenza has been hired by Visiting Angels as their Director of Marketing.

Harford County Executive David R. Craig recently recognized Scouts and Scout leaders from the Boy Scouts of America, Baltimore Area Council, for the upcoming 2013 "Scouting for Food" campaign. Several Scouts and Scout leaders were greeted by Craig at his office and presented with a donation of two bags of food. "Scouting for Food" is a food collection effort carried out by the Boy Scouts, Venture Scouts, Cub Scouts and adult volunteers from scouting organizations and local communities.

The 19 wooded acres in northern Harford County blend in well with the sprawling Boy Scouts campground that surrounds it. But on state tax rolls, the tract essentially doesn't exist. No owner is listed - a rarity in Maryland - and as the Boy Scouts try to add the land to their campground and be declared the official owner, they must grapple with an arcane, Colonial-era convention known as a land patent. Purchasing property by securing a land patent from the state was the way many people built wealth in the years after the Revolutionary War, but the practice mostly ended after the bulk of land in Maryland was first surveyed and sold off. The Baltimore Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America is using the same method to acquire a parcel that somehow slipped through the cracks.

Brady Daniels Kautsch, 17 of Bel Air, earned the highest advancement award the Boy Scouts of America offers to Scouts, the Eagle Scout Award, on Dec. 13, 2012 and was formally recognized in a ceremonial Court of Honor on March 17, at the Church of St. Mark - Monsignor McCall Center in Fallston. A member of Troop 801, Kautsch is one of approximately 4 percent of all Boy Scouts who attain the Eagle rank, according to Scoutmaster Steve Martinek. To earn scouting's highest award, each candidate must earn 21 merit badges -- some required, some elective -- and successfully coordinate and complete a community-related service project.

Among the thousands of "perversion files" kept by the Boy Scouts of America is a Maryland-based illustration of the system's failure. Five years after an Allegany County teacher pleaded guilty to 10 sex offenses involving 12- and 13-year-old boys in 1980, he "slipped through our system" and continued to work in the organization, a Boy Scout administrator wrote in paperwork assembled to flag Arthur D. Margulies as a danger to Scouts. The Boy Scouts had kicked Margulies out of an Allegany Scouting organization after his first criminal case, which was covered by newspapers, but he then infiltrated another, undetected until more allegations were reported to headquarters.

A once-prominent Eastern Shore congressman who left office in 1980 amid allegations that he had solicited sex from a 16-year-old male prostitute was flagged the same year by the Boy Scouts of America in the organization's expansive "perversion files. " The file on former Rep. Robert E. "Bob" Bauman provides yet another glimpse into the way the organization compiled its confidential records, which were made public last week by court order. They outline decades of allegations of sexual abuse or misconduct by people affiliated with the Boy Scouts.

When Stacey Carter and her son Thomas, 7, went on their first camping trip more than a year ago, they were less than prepared for the crisp October nights outdoors. Since then, Carter said she's invested in an air mattress and Snuggies and learned to love camping. On Saturday, she and her son survived their first night at Latrobe Park on Fort Avenue, where their Boy Scout Cub Pack 162 based in Columbia was staying with other Scouts to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America.

Boy Scouts awards dinner "Strong values, strong leaders, character counts" -- the theme of the Boy Scouts of America -- was borne out by the guest list at the Baltimore Area Council, BSA's annual Henry A. Rosenberg Sr. Distinguished Citizen Award Dinner. To begin with, Cardinal William H. Keeler, this year's award recipient, was honored for his embodiment of Boy Scout principles and dedication to improving the quality of life in the Baltimore area. Then, there were about 390 other guests who gathered at the Hyatt Regency event, including: Raymond "Chip" Mason, event chair; Mike Batza, Charlie Cole, Russ Jones, Bill Crowley and John Pearson, dinner co-chairs; Henry A. Rosenberg Jr., national BSA vice president; Ted Verdery, BSA Baltimore Council chair; Carolyn McGuire-Frenkil, president of Substance Abuse Services; Carroll Bodie, vice president and general counsel for Procter & Gamble; Kathleen Counts, financial consultant for First Union Bank; Brandon Howell, 14, Star Scout and the dinner's youth speaker; and members of Baltimore area Boy Scout troops Nos. 118, 37 and 18, who posted the colors in the evening's opening ceremony.

Baltimore driver Marc Bunting, who will drive his Porsche 911 GT3 in the American Le Mans Series race here in September, turned the engine on and stepped on the gas. Behind the car, Akil Wise, 11, his brother, Da'Sean, 13, and their friend in Boy Scout Troop 8548, Jabari Gilliam, 13, all jumped and then smiled sheepishly. "I'm scared out of my mind," Akil said when asked what he thought about the race car. "I didn't think it would be so loud. " "It was like thunder," Da'Sean said.

As members of Boy Scout Troop 117 gathered to discuss their trip to see the Baltimore County Council in action, a troop leader leaned in, trying to coax details from the easily distracted boys. Finally, they discussed their favorite part of the council meeting. "'The meeting is now adjourned,'" one joked to a chorus of laughter from the group. The scene could play out in a Scout troop anywhere. But the members of Troop 117 aren't your typical Scouts. The troop is one of 13 in the Baltimore area geared to boys and young men with special physical, mental and emotional challenges.

Boy Scout Troop 828 presented the William Bayne Scout of the Year Award for 2012 to James Heuser at its annual Court of Awards and Dinner on Feb. 14 at Havenwood Presbyterian Church, which sponsors the troop.  The award recognizes the Scout's achievements and contributions to the troop. James received his Eagle rank on Dec. 5, 2012, and has served the troop in many roles, including senior patrol leader, den chief, scribe, quartermaster and instructor, as well as serving as chaplain's aide for Philmont in 2011. Currently a junior at Loyola Blakefield High School, he initiated and is president of the Games Club, and has been a member of the chess, German and robotics Clubs. Proud parents are Leslie and Mark Heuser.  In addition to the Scout of the Year award, rank advancements were presented and new patrol leaders installed during the Court of Awards.

The Sun's editors are the only people I know who can speak of homosexuality and morality in the same breath ("Scout's honor," Feb. 6) when, in fact, they are totally opposite. The scriptures make it plain that homosexuality is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Men performing indecent acts with other men is shameful. Women performing indecent acts with women is shameful. The only sexual relationship that God ordains is the relationship between a man and a woman within the confines of marriage.

For 102 years, people have been treated unequally by the Boy Scouts, and on Jan. 28, the organization's board delayed a vote on whether to allow local chapters to decide whether to admit gay members and leaders. In Maryland where gay couples are now legally allowed to get married, they still may not be allowed to join Scouting. This ultimately provides an adverse consequence to a newly-earned freedom. No one should not be declined from the Boy Scouts because of sexual orientation.

Scouting has been built by the mostly volunteer labor of parents and other interested adults who have formed troops attached to many different non-profit service organizations (The Scouts and gays," Feb. 4). While religious institutions may constitute a majority of the sponsoring groups, Scouting was and remains, when done according to the Baden-Powell spirit, non-sectarian, non-religious and primarily devoted to civic service. The Scout Law declares only that a scout is reverent; your op-ed writer, Patrick Boyle, has added his own "to God. " Churches may be using Scouting to inculcate their particular beliefs, but that is not what Scouting is all about.

The leaders of the Boy Scouts of America are expected to vote tomorrow on whether to scrap the organization's long-standing national ban on admitting gay Scouts and Scout leaders, and to replace it with a policy that allows the religious and civic organizations that sponsor individual Scout units to set their own rules on the issue. The ban on gay Scouts is an anachronism that flies in the face of the overdue societal trend toward greater inclusiveness, tolerance and acceptance of diversity.

Over the past 103 years, America's churches have built the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) into the nation's most successful youth group - which makes it remarkable that the BSA stands ready to let gays join Scouting, thus publicly renouncing the wishes of some of its oldest and dearest friends. A proposal to let the local organizations that run Scout units decide whether to accept homosexual boys and leaders - to be voted on by the BSA board of directors this week - is monumental not only for Scouting but for what it says about the state of gay rights in America.

WASHINGTON -- New Jersey's Supreme Court has unanimously issued a ruling that deserves to be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court, which four years ago issued a unanimous ruling that may be incompatible with the New Jersey ruling that the Boy Scouts cannot discriminate against homosexuals.The controversy, with wide ramifications for American freedom, is not about whether the Scouts' policy is right but whether the Scouts have a right to it.James Dale, now 29, became a Scout at age 8, earned Eagle Scout status, and was an assistant scoutmaster in New Jersey when Scout officials saw a newspaper photo of him as a leader of a gay rights group at Rutgers University.

May 23 marked a big day for the boys of Boy Scout Troop 007 . During a spring Court of Honor ceremony led by Senior Patrol Leader Louis Colangelo and Scoutmaster John Alden, the boys were recognized for their advancements. Mike Bishop, Robert Daniel, Will Connor, Eric Saulsbury, Aaron Brent, Nick Condron, Ryan Condron, Tom Condron, Alex Hanon, Austen Rhomann, A.J. Tribaldi, and Luke Barragan were among those honored. Many other scouts were recognized for earning merit badges.

The results of The Sun's "What Maryland thinks" polls seem so out of tune with other polls' results. The first one I noticed asked the question if Hillary Clinton had done a good job as secretary of state. The results were overwhelmingly negative. Secretary Clinton's positive ratings as reported by other polls are very high. More recently, there was a poll regarding the Boy Scouts of America with a majority opposing the lifting of the ban on gay scouts and leaders. Who are your readers that reply to these polls?

An article in the Jan. 24, 1963, edition of the Herald Argus and Baltimore Countian reported the heroics of a school custodian in rescuing a student. Fourteen-year-old Norman G. Gaither , an eighth grade student at Our Lady of Victory Catholic school on Wilkins avenue, was rushed to St. Agnes hospital in the Arbutus Volunteer Fire Department ambulance on Jan. 16 after a cinder block wall collapsed in the school room, knocking him into a chair, injuring his chest and fracturing ribs.