It’s easy to do something fun for a little while. People join clubs and social groups all the time, but in short order, something else comes up to replace it. For Mike Rowe, the famous television personality and host of Dirty Jobs on Discovery Channel, this relentless succession of activities is his living. Each week, he helps everyday Americans do some of the most disgusting, dirty professions—for a day—and then he moves on. It’s great television.
Rowe is also an Eagle Scout, and has shown all the creativity and leadership expected with that accomplishment. His career in media has included twists and turns taking him from QVC to CBS news to Discovery Channel series to truck commercials. Based loosely on his work on Dirty Jobs, he’s also created a website advocating for the blue-collar workers that keep America working. Rowe is fulfilling the second point of the Scout Law, “Loyalty.”
Not only is he loyal to his adoring audience, but also to the laborers he works with. Rowe really does the jobs, from whale autopsies to sewer inspections, and he (and his sense of humor) sticks with it no matter how gross the experience.
Recently, Rowe’s loyalty to the Boy Scouts also was shown in a video he posted on his website. He wished the Boy Scouts a happy one-hundredth birthday, and announced that he would speak to Scouts at the centennial National Scout Jamboree set to begin on Monday at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia.
Bill Nunamacher will also be attending this jamboree as the office manager for the Jamboree Today newspaper. Appearing below with Chief Scout Executive Bob Mazzuka, this will be Nunamacher's tenth jamboree, and has proven himself invaluable in keeping the newsroom stocked with everything the reporters and editors need to produce the eight-page daily publication on time.
A former mathematics professor, Nunamacher’s loyalty to Scouting is plain. “I used to teach math, but now I teach leadership,” he says. “Leadership is a lot harder than the Pythagorean Theorem.” Aside from dispensing reporter’s pads and pencils, Nunamacher dispenses a great deal of wisdom to the staff.
This wisdom has been accumulated through sixty-eight years in the Scouting program. Nunamacher earned his Eagle Scout rank in 1945, in the same era as my grandfather, and hasn’t looked back since. In fact, he has always looked forward—as leaders should—with an eye on helping his students, Scouts, and younger friends grow and succeed. That's true loyalty.
I told him that I hope to be like him one day. I truly do.
Rowe, the television host, says in his (form) letter to Eagle Scouts: “Live the Scout Law. Remember the Scout Oath. Be unique. And don’t forget to have fun.”
Maybe if I follow his advice, I’ll make it to my tenth jamboree.
This week and next, I plan to blog about Scouting’s main principles as set out in the Scout Motto, Scout Law, and Scout Slogan.
Daniel M. Reck, M.S.Ed., is a copy editor for Jamboree Today, the daily newspaper of the Boy Scouts of America National Scout Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia. An Eagle Scout, he is also the Assistant Director of Greek Life, Leadership, and Involvement at Monmouth College in Illinois.