CORINNE -- To earn an Eagle Scout award, the Boy Scouts of America requires a Scout to earn a minimum of 21 merit badges.
Shayne Tillman, of Corinne, started on that as soon as he entered into the Scouting program. His Eagle Court of Honor was held on his 13th birthday.
But Shayne didn't stop there, as he could have. Now 18, he's gone on to earn every merit badge the program has to offer.
Well, all but one - a robotics badge just recently added to the program.
"I didn't have anything else to do, so I decided to earn the rest," Shayne said.
When he started working toward the lofty goal of earning every merit badge, there were 121 badges to earn.
Then, in 2010, four new badges were added to the program, and four more badges commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Scouting program.
His sash was made to hold the 121 badges, and there was enough space to squeeze in a few extra, but Shayne still has three badges that don't fit on the sash.
While many of the badges are simple and were obtained at a number of Scout camps over the years, others required a lot more work.
The hardest by far was the signaling and Morse code badge. Shayne was required to learn to flag signals that could be read by incoming airplanes.
"And the Morse code ... that's just a lot of dot-dot-dot ... dot-dot," he said.
It took him three months to complete that badge.
It took him a year to receive his astronomy badge, where he was required to learn the positions of the stars and planets on several star-gazing trips. However, this one wasn't so difficult - he just didn't find it as interesting as some of the others.
And Shayne is the first to admit that the biggest reason it took so long to pass it off was procrastination, pure and simple.
In the process of earning all of those merit badges, Shayne said he has learned a lot from every one of them. He enjoyed sailing a boat at Aspen Ridge. He has learned about chemistry, pottery and scuba diving. And in the process, he has developed a wide array of hobbies.
Shayne is a senior at Box Elder High School, where he's enrolled in classes ranging from automotive and agriculture to AP History, Honors English and theater.
He was part of the technical crew for the production of "Phantom of the Opera" and is a member of the Spanish club and the National Honors Society.
Shayne, who will graduate in June, has his future mapped out just as definitively as he made up his mind to go after all of those merit badges.
He plans to attend the University of Utah in the fall, where he will work towards a degree in chemical engineering, with a possible double major in history or medicine. And, he said, maybe he will minor in political science.
This way, he has options. He can pursue a career in chemical engineering, or he can be a college professor or even an anesthesiologist.
In the meantime, Shayne continues to be active in the Scouting program. After the completion of Boy Scouts, he is now part of the Venture Scouts, where he has already earned a number of medals.
The most notable of those was the National Medal for Outdoor Achievement -- he was the first Scout in the nation to earn that medal after it was reintroduced two years ago.
This award is the highest recognition that a Boy Scout or Varsity Scout can earn for achievement, experience, and skill in multiple areas of outdoor endeavor.
To earn this medal, Shayne first had to earn five badges in riding, hiking, adventure, aquatics and camping. He also earned a leadership medal, one he could only receive by nomination.
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