photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

Mariclare Murray, 18, is pictured at Scouts BSA Troop 55's headquarters behind West Side Presbyterian Church. Murray is the first female Eagle Scout in Lawrence.

Mariclare Murray may not be the first Eagle Scout in her family, but there’s at least one distinction that’s all her own: She’s the first female Eagle Scout in Lawrence.

Murray, 18, followed in her two older brothers’ footsteps and joined Scouts BSA Troop 55 — chartered to West Side Presbyterian Church — in 2019 at age 14, when the organization began allowing girls to join. She achieved the Eagle Scout rank before aging out of Scouts eligibility after her 18th birthday in early August. Her father, Michael, told the Journal-World that he had confirmed Murray was the first local female Eagle with regional Scouts BSA leadership.

After four years of involvement, Murray said the experience ended up being about much more than just learning about leadership.

“For me, scouting was building up confidence and learning how to talk to people,” Murray told the Journal-World from Troop 55’s headquarters behind West Side Presbyterian last week. “I got to do things that I could never have imagined. Eleven-year-old me would have thought that I was one of the first explorers of the world, honestly.”

photo by: Contributed

Mariclare Murray prepares to board a train headed to Scouts BSA’s Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico.

Murray wasn’t the only girl involved with the troop during her four years of activity, or even the first to join. She was, however, the only one to stick around for the entirety of the past four years.

When the shift first occurred, it was through “linked” troops — two troops, one for boys and one for girls, that shared a chartered organization while preserving the single-gender troop model. Murray said she thought that model didn’t provide for an equal experience, and she’s happy to have instead been involved with her troop in a more integrated sense throughout her time there.

“When I first joined, it was very much a gray area,” Murray said. “This hadn’t happened before, so it was like we’re not really sure what to have happen.”

Being welcomed into the fold right away also allowed her to accomplish her ultimate goal of earning the Eagle Scout rank. Achieving the rank comes with a number of requirements, among them being active in a troop for at least six months as a Life Scout — the last of five ranks a scout can earn before Eagle — and earning a total of 21 merit badges, 13 of which are required. The requirement that’s perhaps the most well-known even among folks who haven’t been involved with a Scout troop is the service project requirement, in part because such projects have to benefit an organization besides Scouts BSA and tend to be located in visible public spots like parks.

Murray’s Eagle Scout project, for example, was a bee garden at St. Lawrence Catholic Center. It’s filled with plants native to Kansas that are friendly to bees and other pollinators. After Murray nailed down the details, the work of putting the garden in the ground took upward of eight hours across two work days. On top of that, those vying for their Eagle Scout rank have to complete a workbook that describes the process.

photo by: Contributed

Mariclare Murray, pictured near the center of the photo in the blue shirt, works on her Eagle Scout project, a bee garden at St. Lawrence Catholic Center.

In a sense, it was another mirror of her brothers’ experiences, which involved Eagle Scout projects of an equally animal-centric nature. One older brother, Daniel, planted a butterfly garden at South Park, and the other, Xavier, built bat houses to hang from trees at the Baker University Wetlands.

“We’re all very similar,” Murray said. “…I always really liked having them (around). Honestly, I wish I could’ve done more with them, but they aged out before me.”

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Looking back, Murray said highlights of her time as an active scout included completing her “Triple Crown” — going to three of Scouts BSA’s four “High-Adventure Bases.” Murray went dog sledding for three days at the Northern Tier High Adventure Base in Minnesota, sailed for a week at the Florida Sea Base, and went backpacking in New Mexico at Philmont Scout Ranch.

photo by: Contributed

Mariclare Murray takes the wheel during a week of sailing at one of Scouts BSA’s “High-Adventure Bases,” the Florida Sea Base.

Another highlight was being on the staff of the summer camp held at H. Roe Bartle Scout Reservation in Osceola, Missouri. It was an experience that Murray described as “life-changing.” Murray said it was also rewarding to see younger kids learn to swim at camp, right before her eyes. Much in the same way, she said, she herself built plenty of confidence.

Murray said being involved in Scouts was transformative in more ways than one. She said two years ago, she probably wouldn’t have been comfortable sitting down for an interview about her experience in the first place. Attending the summer camp was especially impactful on that front, as Murray said it more or less forced her to come out of her shell.

“I always say that Scouts is where I learned to talk,” Murray said. “I was homeschooled up until last year. I did have other people that I knew, but for the most part I spent a lot of my time with my older brothers, which is part of the reason I look up to them so much.”

photo by: Contributed

Mariclare Murray is pictured with her older brother, Xavier, while at a Scouts BSA summer camp. The siblings’ time in Lawrence’s Troop 55 overlapped a bit before Xavier aged out of participation eligibility at age 18.

Murray now attends Hayden Catholic High School in Topeka, where she’s just started her senior year. She’s thinking about either attending the University of Kansas or the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Her degree plans vary a bit. She said she either wants to pursue a degree in wildlife biology or in performing arts; she previously danced at the Lawrence Arts Center for nine years, and spent another three years with the center’s resident pre-professional ballet company, Lawrence Ballet Theatre.

Murray’s also planning on sticking around Troop 55 to help mentor a girl with a familiar story; she recently joined the troop at age 14 and has similar aspirations of earning her Eagle Scout rank. There are also other girls interested in getting involved with the troop, Murray said, and she has a personal goal of getting a girls’ troop started with Troop 55.

“For me, it was important that I stayed here; my brothers Eagled here, and I like the leaders here, I like how we do program here, and I really want girls to be able to enjoy that same thing,” Murray said. “I want girls to have a better experience than I had, and I had a fantastic time.”