Two Historic Brookhaven high school seniors were awarded their Eagle Scout rank in December. As young women, Katie Fair and Gracie Urban join the more than 6,000 females who have earned the award since girls were allowed to qualify.

 

Katie and Gracie are members of the all-girl Scout Troop 372. The troop was founded in 2019 when Scouts BSA (formerly known as Boy Scouts of America) opened to girls ages 11 to 17 and admitted all-girl troops. The troop is part of the Scout program sponsored by St. James United Methodist Church.

 

To attain the rank, Scouts must earn 21 merit badges (14 required and seven chosen by the Scout); serve in troop leadership positions and demonstrate outdoors skills; plan, develop, and lead a service project for a school, community, or religious organization; show they live by the Scout Oath and Law; and present to and be approved by an Eagle Scout Board of Review. The project is perhaps the most well-known of these requirements. For example, installation of the steps at either end of Vermont Park were Eagle Scout projects for two neighborhood Boy Scouts years ago. Yet all the other steps take years and many hours to complete.

 

Here's a look into each girl’s Eagle rank journey.

 

SUBHEAD = Katie Fair

 

Katie is one of the founding members of Troop 372. She is a senior at The Cottage School in Roswell and plays on the varsity tennis team. Katie will enter Georgia Tech’s EXCEL program in the fall.

 

As quartermaster for the troop, she was responsible for keeping up with camping gear. Not a small job for a troop that has monthly campouts. By the time she graduates this spring, Katie will have accrued more than 106 camping nights with the Scouts. Her scouting and camping experience helped earn her summer jobs the past two summers as a full-time counselor at Camp Woodruff in Blairsville.

 

She attended to two High Adventure campouts, which are designed for Scouts to test their skills and limits. Her Sea Base experience in St. Thomas was on a boat. At Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, the Scouts’ largest High Adventure Camp, Katie’s parents Martha and Mark joined her. Mark is also an Eagle Scout and his trip to Philmont with Katie was the 50th anniversary of his own Boy Scout adventure there.

 

For her project, Katie chose to build a bluebird habitat at her school’s high school campus, which has a lot of wooded areas. She built and installed birdhouses and planted native shrubs that attract and provide food for birds. “The school was very supportive,” says Martha, who as a parent volunteer serves as troop committee chair and treasurer. “The main purpose of the Eagle Scout project is demonstrating leadership, and Katie felt comfortable planning and presenting her ideas to the school administration.”

 

SUBHEAD = Gracie Urban

 

Gracie joined an all-girls Scout troop when her family moved here from California four years ago. As the daughter of an Eagle Scout, she had been interested for a while but had no opportunity in her area of the Golden State.

 

She is a senior at The Mount Vernon School, where she runs cross country. Gracie committed to Georgia Tech for fall 2025.

 

While she ultimately chose her school as the recipient of her Eagle project, she first was interested in building a prayer garden at her church. After several discussions, instead the church asked for help with another project and Gracie turned to a different organization with her prayer garden idea. That group declined at the last minute and left Gracie with a looming deadline and no service project. Scouts must complete the Eagle rank requirements and be approved by the review board prior to their 18th birthday. It was August and she was turning 18 toward the end of September.

 

“I quickly had to pivot,” she says. She turned to her cross country coach for assistance in brainstorming, and came up with the idea to make and install trail markers on the Mt. Vernon campus’s cross country trails.

 

The Mount Vernon cross country trail has four diverging trails, which until Gracie’s project were not clearly marked and could confuse unfamiliar runners. She made and installed different colored trail markers for each path. She cut wood planks; sanded, stained, and painted each; marked trails with spray paint and flags prior to installation; and organized a day of service where volunteers from her troop and cross country team helped screw the signs onto trees.

 

“It was nice to still do something that I was passionate about,” Gracie says.

 

Gracie’s merit badges included automotive maintenance, archery, roller skating, small boat sailing, forestry, climbing, and American cultures. She served at several levels of patrol leader as she moved up the scouting ranks.

 

Because of her tight deadline, Gracie had to be approved by the review board on her first pass. The review was a week before her 18th birthday.  “I had a great group of people making sure I could make the finish line,” she says. These included her dad, troop leader, scoutmaster, and coach.  They made sure everything was air tight and at the end of the review, Gracie was thrilled to hear the words, “Congratulations, you’re an Eagle Scout.”