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Family has flock of Eagle Scouts

August 17, 2007 3:43 am

Kevin Williams was hanging out with the wrong crowd, and his mother was having none of it.

So in 1979, Fannie Williams marched her son over to Fredericksburg's Boy Scout Troop 165 and hoped for the best.

"My mother basically did it to me at gunpoint. Boy Scouts saved my life," said Kevin Williams, who would later rise to Eagle Scout, the highest rank available in Scouting. "It gave my mother something she could really smile about."

The entire Williams family is smiling these days. Williams, a Spotsylvania native, earned his Eagle Scout rank in 1983 at the age of 16. At the time, he was told he was the first African-American in the troop's history to do so.

His oldest son, Kevin Jr., now 22, achieved the same honor in 2000. His two younger, Marcellus, 18, and Elijah, 15, continued the family tradition by becoming Eagle Scouts last month.

All three boys have been members of Troop 835 in Spotsylvania.

Kevin Williams Sr. credits his mother, who died in 1991, with the tradition. The wife of a U.S. Marine, she worked two jobs to pay for his Scouting activities and summer camp, where he learned self-reliance.

"It rained. I was wet. I was covered with ticks," he said of one summer at Camp Bonner in North Carolina. "I learned how to make a fire with my knife. When I came out of that experience, I was a new man."

The skills he learned in Scouting helped him during a 24-year career in the Navy, where he served aboard ships in both Gulf wars, Williams said. He retired as a lieutenant commander on July 25, the day his two youngest sons learned they had made Eagle.

Kevin Jr. said he joined Boy Scouts hoping for the fun and adventure that his dad seemed to be having in old photographs. He earned 22 badges on his way to Eagle Scout, his favorite being the swimming badge.

"It was pretty much one of my biggest accomplishments," said Kevin Jr., who is pursuing a criminal justice degree at Germanna Community College in hopes of one day serving in law enforcement. "People look at you differently when you're an Eagle Scout."

Like his father, Kevin Jr. was told he was the first African-American to earn the honor in Troop 835. Boy Scouts of America does not keep records on how many African-Americans have reached the rank of Eagle Scout nationwide.

Marcellus said he joined Scouting because he got tired of watching his older brother go off to camp without him.

"The vibe of him having fun, all the stories he was telling--'I got to jump in the river. I got this badge.'--I got jealous," said Marcellus, who is studying graphic communications with plans to design video games.

The boys say their father didn't exactly force them to pursue the Eagle Scout rank, though he certainly encouraged them.

"My dad, he kind of had my back," said Marcellus.

He and younger brother Elijah, who wants to work as a physician's assistant, refurbished a bicycle trail off Harrison Road for their Eagle Scout projects. Kevin Jr. built an orienteering course at Spotsylvania's Loriella Park.

Mom Bridgette Williams said she never had any doubt that her sons would become Eagle Scouts. She and her husband both attended Courtland High School in the 1980s, and she remembers well how proud he was when he made rank.

"To me, it's the greatest achievement a person could ever get," she said. "I've got four Eagles around me. I'm just as ecstatic as ecstatic could be."