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SACRAMENTO — A teenager with local ties is one of ten scouts selected to deliver the Boy Scouts of America’s Report to the Nation.
Dallin Stevens, 14, will travel with the group to Washington, D.C., on Sunday to meet with U.S. Cabinet members and leadership of both the House and Senate. The Report to the Nation will include information about what Boy Scouts did in 2014 and what they hope to do in 2015.
Stevens, who recently moved to Sacramento from Orem, holds registration in both the Utah National Parks and Golden Empire councils. He was nominated to represent the Boy Scouts by Lee Hansen, a Brigham Young University professor who Stevens had been working with on scouting projects.
Hansen submitted the application without Stevens' knowledge, so Stevens said he was surprised when he received a call from the national office in November.
“I was kind of shocked that I was chosen because I know there are older scouts who have done some pretty cool stuff,” Stevens said.
Stevens has been involved with scouts since he was 8 years old. He was interested in the new STEM-related supernova awards, so when he moved to Utah from Arkansas he sought out a mentor and was eventually connected with Hansen.
Together, Stevens and Hansen worked to bring the program to the Utah National Parks Council. The teenager was later invited to talk at a district operations conference about STEM and then emcee both the Celebration of the Eagles and a Silver Beaver recognition event before he moved.
Stevens submitted the application for his Hornaday award the day he left for Sacramento. He received his Eagle several months earlier on June 17. For his project, he planted close to 300 willow trees along the Fremont River near Loa in Wayne County.
Since moving to Sacramento, Stevens has joined a community Venturing team in addition to a Varsity team associated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is currently working on earning Hornaday medals and has several projects set up. One project is to remove invasive species from a protected area, a second is to build wood dock boxes near a lake, and a third is to help develop a system for fish line disposal.
“I moved around a lot, so it’s been kind of a routine for me to adapt, but I started getting my Hornaday projects out here before I even moved out here,” he said. “I had already talked to botanists about doing projects.”
During his trip to Washington, Stevens will visit places like the Pentagon, the White House, the Supreme Court, the Goddard Space Center and the Smithsonian Institute.
