New Horizon Boy Scout Earns Every Merit Badge

October 02, 2017

Eagle Scout Garrett Slosson of Troop 809 in New Horizons District wanted to be the first kid in his Cub Scout Pack to earn the Super Achiever Award. Once he accomplished that goal, he carried the same level of determination and hard work into Boy Scouts where he set his sights on something bigger- earning every merit badge.

Eight years in the making, Garrett earned merit badge number 138— golf— in June 2018. If you check the Boy Scouts of America website, you’ll notice there are “only” 135 merit badges available. Garret earned computers and cinematography before they were discontinued and earned a couple of recently added merit badges.

Earning every merit badge is difficult enough on its own, but Garrett experienced even more adversity when his family moved to Belgium in 2015. While overseas, Garrett spent two and a half years in the Transatlantic Council.

“That pretty much put a standstill on all my merit badge earning except for maybe five,” explained Garrett. “Mainly because there’s not a lot of opportunities for it over there and because the ones they did have, I had already earned. Which is unforeseeable, but you kind of got to roll with the punches. However, I did get a lot of experiences that helped me with other merit badges I would [later] earn.”

This fall, Garrett is a freshman at Webster University where he’ll study game design, his favorite merit badge and one he earned in 2014. But to answer the obvious next question, Garret did not discover this career field through Scouting.

“That’s a common misconception with me,” Garrett said with a smile. “Actually, I’ve wanted to be a game designer probably since I was six or so. I’ve just always been interested in games and making them.”

If you’re not quite certain what you want to be when you grow up however, Garrett says the merit badge system is a great way to help youth with that decision.

“My dad and a lot of merit badge counselors say that they’re there so people who don’t know what they want to do with their lives can have an opportunity to go into that field for a day or so and test it out,” said Garrett. “I think doing all of this has really helped me not only narrow down what I definitely want to do with my life, but it’s also been able to help me with keeping conversation with most anyone having that knowledge.

“Also, it’s good on a resume.”