Scouting name change reflects modern identity

Local troops say diversity has grown for several years

The Boy Scouts of America announced last week that it would be getting a makeover.

Actually, the makeover has been taking place over the last decade.

What was announced Tuesday at the organization’s annual conference is merely a branding formality, given that the BSA had become “an acronym that had no meaning,” according to one Little Rock-area scout leader.

Starting in February 2025, what was Boy Scouts of America will simply be known as Scouting America.

“I wasn’t aware of the name change (until Tuesday), but scouting has gone — has been going through — transformations where you’re just seeing the turnover in leadership and restructuring in the organization,” said Grover Miller, scoutmaster of Troop 24 in Little Rock. “It’s become younger and more modernized and I think more reflective of the general population so it’s become a lot more diverse.”

Founded 114 years ago, the Texas-based organization has recently been mired in turmoil over a flood of sexual abuse claims and bankruptcy. Now, the organization is leaning into a more inclusive message as girls have been joining its ranks for years now.

“It sends this really strong message to everyone in America that they can come to this program, they can bring their authentic self, they can be who they are and they will be welcomed here,” said Roger Krone, who took over last fall as president and chief executive officer of BSA.

The change was announced Tuesday at the Boy

Scouts’ national meeting in Florida but won’t take effect until Feb. 8, 2025 — the organization’s 115th birthday.

The new name puts a focus on inclusivity. Krone told The Associated Press that they wanted a name going forward that made clear that all children and teens are “very, very welcome.”

He added that when people question why the organization needs a new name, he points to historically low membership numbers.

Like other organizations, the scouts lost members during the covid-19 pandemic, when participation was difficult. The high point over the past decade was in 2018, when there were more than 2 million members. Currently, the organization serves just over 1 million young people, including more than 176,000 girls and teens. Membership peaked in 1972 at almost 5 million.

In Arkansas, what was formally known as the Westark

Council Area — which covered the Northwest Arkansas portion of the state — went from almost 6,000 scouts to just under 2,000 scouts in a three-year period that included the pandemic.

Krone said that although the name is changing, the core of the organization is staying the same. “Our mission remains unchanged: we are committed to teaching young people” to be prepared for life, he said in a written statement.

The organization began allowing in gay members in 2013 and ended a blanket ban on gay adult leaders in 2015. In 2017, it made the historic announcement that girls would be accepted as Cub Scouts as of 2018 and two years later, into the flagship Boy Scout program — renamed Scouts BSA.

Over 6,000 girls have now achieved the vaunted Eagle Scout rank.

There were nearly 1,000 teens and young women in the inaugural class of female Eagle Scouts in 2021.

Before it was announced in 2017 that girls would be allowed throughout the ranks, the Boy Scouts announced that they would allow transgender boys to enroll in their boys-only programs.

The organization said this week that all young people, including transgender children, are welcomed as part of their membership policy.

It was also announced that a pilot program for multi-gendered troops would start soon.

The name change is just the latest evolution when it comes to scouting in Arkansas.

Last November, the state’s two largest Boy Scouts councils — the Quapaw Area Council, originally formed as the Little Rock Council in 1913 and the Westark Area Council, originally founded in 1920 and based in Fort Smith — announced they would merge in December.

The move affected more than 6,200 kids across 56 of Arkansas’ 75 counties.

The united council — called the Natural State Council — is led by Shanna Richardson.

Richardson, who has been part of the Boy Scouts of America for just over 23 years, started her career in Utah and has run the Little Rock office for going on three years. As of November, she was one of five women who held the title of CEO in the BSA.

Richardson was not available for an interview for this story.

Miller, who has been involved with scouting for about 15 years, described her as a “rock and roller” who “brings a lot of energy” to the organization.

“When I was involved earlier it was a lot of old white guys,” Miller said. “Now seeing younger people come in with energy, that’s how you’re gonna get people involved in scouting. So that’s where they’re leading a lot of these changes.”

Miller said the name change to Scouting America is just another reflection of the “cultural change” going on in scouting.

Sam Byrd, who’s been a volunteer in scouting for 30 years and is involved with both the boy and girl scouting segments of BSA, echoed Miller when it came to embracing the cultural changes.

“All of my outstanding wishes have been resolved,” said Byrd, who is involved boys Troop 59 and the girls Troop 6059.

He wears “several hats” in the BSA, serving as a committee chair for a Cub Scouts pack while also working as a committee chair and doing things on a council level, too.

When it comes to how much time he commits to scouting in a week, Byrd said the “joke is one hour a week,” but he averages 10 hours.

Byrd said that in the past scouts had to fit into a certain “model.”

Basically, you had to be straight.

“Anyone that that identified as LGBTQ+” wasn’t allowed. “If you look at our society today, that’s just part of our society. Today people that identified differently from us are just part of it. The heart, the most pushback from that was from adults, primarily older adults. To the youth, it’s just another kid.”

A Google search of BSA scouting troops in the Little Rock area shows many that are associated with or charted by local churches.

Byrd estimated that half of the area troops have relationships with churches.

However, that started changing about 10 years ago, when the BSA began permitting gay members.

“When the Baptist churches decided they could no longer charter Scouts because we were starting to allow in gays, that’s when the changes were really started to begin,” Byrd said. “Then part of the bankruptcy (over sex abuse claims) that caused a lot of chartered groups to take a look at their liability. And so the Methodist church as a whole decided that they didn’t want that liability associated with them.”

Some churches have dropped their charter affiliation with troops, while still hosting the groups via facility agreements, said Byrd.

Miller’s Troop 24, once associated with a Methodist church, has been chartered by a Kiwanis Club since last year.

“That’s caused some challenges with some of the packs and troops to continue,” Miller said. “Because they don’t have a charter organization, they pretty much don’t exist.”

When it comes to the integration of girls into the BSA, it’s essentially been a seamless transition for the local Cub Scout and Boy Scout Troops, though not every troop yet has a corresponding girls group.

“They still have a separate boys troop and a girls troop,” Miller explained. “They can have the same (troop) number and they can do joint activities … like a common camping trip. That’s something we’ve explored is setting up a Troop 24 for girls. Because we’ve had a number of girls go through (Cub Scouts) associated with our troop and we’ve sent them off to other girl troops. But we’re getting close to critical mass where we could get set up our own Troop (for girls).

Byrd noted that at the time BSA began allowing girls to join it, America was one of just two countries under the World Organization on Scouting banner that didn’t allow girls to be in its scouting ranks.

Byrd said the transition of including girls in the BSA was “fairly easy.”

“Our troop has always had sisters that tagged along to do stuff, especially in the Cub Scout world, which is elementary age group,” Byrd said. “You know, when brother comes to the meetings on Monday night to do stuff, if sister doesn’t have someone to stay with her, she’d come along and she’d do the activities, too. She just couldn’t get the get the patches.”

Even with the ability to combine into one unit now, Byrd said his respective troops will still function separately, while still doing activities, like camping, together.

“For now our units are going to stay separate because the girls troop has kind of formed its own identity,” Byrd said. “We’d hate to take that away from them. They said for five years you can’t be in the same troop and all of a sudden they say you can, ‘so let’s just take away this identity that you’ve been creating for yourself for five years, just so we can all share the same number.’”