Side of Ranch: Jay Heater

I've got something in common with Harrison Ford, Jimmy Buffett and Bill Gates.

No, it's not my acting, singing or entrepreneurial ability.

We were all committed Boy Scouts who became "Life Scouts," but who failed to be committed enough to reach the Eagle Scout rank.

Slackers, all of us. At least as kids.

Now I don't know about those guys, but I sure wish I had finished the task. Life Scout is the rank immediately below Eagle Scout.

The website USScouts.org tells us about 15,000 boys across the United States earn Eagle status each year or about four of every 100. It is a select group.

Last week in Lakewood Ranch, I met Bill Lehman, an 18-year-old senior at Braden River High School. He is being honored 12:30 p.m. April 9 at the Oneco United Methodist Church for becoming an Eagle Scout. The ceremony is open to the public if you want to congratulate him personally.

We chatted a bit about the drive needed to fulfill Eagle Scout requirements. Since he finished the task, I asked what separated him from guys like me who couldn't do it. What keeps guys like Ford, Buffett, Gates and I from getting it done?

Lehman fired off the answers as if he had completed a university study on the subject. "Cars, girls, work."

After thinking about it for two seconds, I realized he was right. But does he have a  car, a girl, or a job?

"I have a car and I work at Texas Roadhouse (on State Road 70)," he said.

No girl. One out of three ain't bad, I guess, when it comes to becoming an Eagle Scout.

Something else keeps teen-aged boys from becoming Eagle Scouts as well, peers who tease unmercifully for being 16 and wearing a green uniform.

I don't know about Billy Gates, but I certainly let that last one get to me. It was stupid to quit, too, because I loved the camping trips I took so often with the Scouts.

Unlike my own Scouting career, which began in Cub Scouts and then progressed, Lehman dabbled in Scouting a bit at the Cub Scout level in Wisconsin before quitting. He didn't return until he had moved to Florida and was a 16-year-old, high school student.

"I had a friend invite me for a weekend of camping," he said. "I fell in love with it. My friends were all shocked when I joined, because I was starting at the lowest level."

He crammed enough merit badges into two years to become an Eagle Scout. "I found it honorable," he said of his pursuit. "I learned skills not many people have these days. And Eagle Scout is something I can put on a job application."

Currently enrolled in the fire science program at Manatee Technical East, you can bet people will take notice when he eventually completes the program and applies for a job. You know he will complete the program because he is an Eagle Scout, for goodness sakes.

His parents, Brien and Jackie Lehman of Rosedale, are proud of his work. "They think it is an extreme accomplishment," he said. "They kind of rub it in whenever they see their friends."

What would he say to his friends who might think Scouting is not so cool.

"Scouting might not be for all boys," said Lehman, who is now an adult leader with Troop 10 of Oneco. "But we will welcome anyone to check it out."

But aren't Eagle Scouts a dying breed?

"I think Scouting will go on forever," he said. "I would tell boys to join. You never know where it might lead you."