DaveS

From what I've been told they are almost impossible to get. I'd get on it immediately. You might need to call multiple ScoutShops at this point. If you find one I'd pay for it so that you have it when needed.

I don't want to know for Council really, more for National. I know there are a few who I know. One of them I took with my son to the LNTT course. But, really, I want to know the grand total. And no one seems to know that. At least the Hornaday (not any more) award folks kept track of their awards.

Just found another article that says "less than 1000" and I'm trying to contact the SM of the Troop to see where that number came from. https://hickoryrecord.com/news/local/scout-earns-medal-for-outdoor-achievement/article_16f1f956-72f6-11ec-b073-bf8dd94680d5.html Article was posted 2/12/22 so it's recent. Just don't know how reliable the info is. I contacted the Gulf Breeze and the person who wrote the piece is retired and the person who got the email basically said Good Luck. So, this most recent article may be the info we need. If you need it this week, it might be the best you can do. I'll let you know if I find more.

DrKate I asked at our local ScoutShop (whose manager is CC of my son's Troop) and he was not able to give me a number. One of our past Council staff now works for National. She was not able to answer. The only numbers I was ever able to find was from quite a while ago. An article in 2016 said there were about 300 who had earned it. news.gulfbreezenews.com/articles/scout-is-an-adventurer/ Then in 05/18/18 "making him one of 370 world-wide achievers." https://news.gulfbreezenews.com/articles/scout-is-an-adventurer/ I have no idea how these folks got a hold of numbers. If you can find something I'd love to hear it. I've been looking. They are from a long time ago. I'm not sure we can extrapolate the trend as it was early in the awards existence. But two data points should be good enough for a journalist. At least from what I've been reading lately. Looks like they will still have the patches for NOAA but drop the medal. It looks like National keeps count of ranks, but has no clue about 'awards'. All we might be able to get out of them is how many of the medals were ever made. My son has Emerg Prep MB to do and then is done. Since my Council/District seems to take 2.5 months to get around to an Eagle Board, and he will turn in papers in a week, he should be on track to get both at same time. I'm guessing he will be the last, or close to it, person in country to be awarded it. I wouldn't want to see a kid who has done all the work for it and then not have the medal available. My son would have killed me. Or, at least thought of it. On same lines, it looks like National is debating doing something to the STEM program. And they sure don't like getting comments from the peons. All comments made to National on that are suposed to be filtered through the Councils.

As an update to an old topic, I purchased a NOAA medal that our Scout Shop had to have sent from another store. I was told it is discontinued. Someone came after I had asked them to get it for me and they were not able to source another one. This was the week of 3/22/22. I have asked how many have been awarded and have not been able to get an answer.