A rare achievement: Earning all Boy Scout merit badges

GLENSIDE, Pa. — In 17 years, Zach Rotzal has accomplished more than most people do in a lifetime.

He’s learned to fly fish and scuba dive, biked hundreds of miles and climbed Yosemite’s Half Dome, survived a lightning strike, a tornado and two floods, skied a black diamond on one of his first times out, hiked a portion of the Appalachian Trail, learned about mining and horses, animation and architecture — the list goes on and on.

Mr. Rotzal is an Eagle Scout, the highest rank in Boy Scouts, reached by more than 2.4 million boys since the award was first presented in 1912. But Mr. Rotzal, a senior at La Salle College High School in Glenside, Montgomery County, recently joined an even more rarefied group when he earned all of scouting’s 139 merit badges. It’s a feat attained by 360 boys in the history of the organization, according to meritbadgeknot.com, an unofficial site that tracks the achievement.

Name a skill or subject, and the North Wales teen has probably dabbled in it: public speaking, sustainability, game design, pioneering, pottery, stamp collecting, water sports, chemistry, theater, inventing, journalism, moviemaking. Some took months and required an obsessive attention to detail and time management.

His father, Peter, estimates that Zach Rotzal spent 5,000 hours over seven years to reach his goal, working 10 to 20 hours a week, sacrificing weekends, and staying up late.

“Looking back, I’m amazed by how much I’ve learned,” said Mr. Rotzal, who looked neat and trim in his scout uniform during an interview at school. The uniform’s sash was cluttered with little circular badges -- so many that they didn’t fit on one, so he had to buy two and sew them together. There’s no badge for sewing, but he tried to do it himself, and pricked his fingers so much that his mother got someone else to sew it. His mother, Susan, is a dentist -- which came in handy in his earning the dentistry badge.

As he talked about his achievement in a small conference room, teachers and staff members kept barging in to congratulate him and to brag about Mr. Rotzal’s