Coronado native and CHS senior, Cole Mullins recently completed the impressive feat of earning all 137 merit badges currently offered by the Boy Scouts of America. Cole is a member of Coronado’s Boy Scout Troop 801 under the leadership of scoutmaster Joe Mullins. Cole first joined the Boy Scouts youth program, Cub Scouts, in second grade and has been a continuous member of Boy Scouts for the past 10 years. Cole’s commitment to Boy Scouts included participating in the national Boy Scout Jamboree, attending the Boy Scouts high-adventure base camp located in West Virginia, and earning the Eagle Scout rank in 2018. “My journey in Boy Scouts started in the fifth grade. I joined because I had been in Cub Scouts an wanted to reach my goal to get to be an Eagle Scout and earn all 137 merit badges.”
The Boy Scouts of America was founded in 1910 and is one of the oldest youth organizations in the United States. Boy Scouts offers merit badges as an award for participating in activities within designated areas of study such as business, biology, and traffic safety. Boy Scouts continuously revises the available merit badges so over the past 20 years there have been between 119 and 142 merit badges available. At its 1910 founding, Boy Scouts offered 57 merit badges including Archery, Cooking and Plumbing. More recently Boys Scouts added merit badges for Exploration, Animation, and Digital Technology. “Some things I did were the different camp outs and treks such as backpacking for two weeks in the mountains of New Mexico or camping in the Florida Keys for a week,” Cole said when asked about different activities. Each merit badge is a circular patch that is worn on the sash of the Boys Scouts uniform. Cole shared that some of his favorite merit badge activities included scuba diving at Catalina Island, rock climbing, sailing, and welding. Earning a merit badge requires time and effort with research, writing, hands-on training, and classes that often occur on weekends and holidays. At a young age Cole planned to earn all of the available merit badges. “I set this goal for myself in the fifth grade, and it has taken close to seven years to complete. I knew that through working hard I could achieve my goal.” Cole is one of the only 450 Boy Scouts in the world and one out of the 90 scouts in his local troop to have earned all the available merit badges. Cole is now included in the global register of scouts who earned all available merit badges on the website www.meritbadgeknot.com.
Coronado Boy Scout Troop 801 and the Coronado community are proud of Cole’s accomplishment.
Related story: Cole Mullins Revitalizes Garden at CMS for Eagle Scout Service Project
