Robert Stewart, the son of James Stewart and Bridget Collins of North Haven, has continued the tradition of members of Sag Harbor’s Boy Scout Troop attaining Scouting’s highest honor — the rank of Eagle Scout.
Stewart, whose court of honor was held on April 23 at the Sag Harbor Firehouse, said he had set his sights on becoming an Eagle Scout from the time he joined the Cub Scouts as a first-grader in part because his grandfather, Walter Stewart, had also been an Eagle Scout. As an even younger boy, Stewart said he had been impressed with his grandfather’s sash displaying the many merit badges he had earned.
To be promoted to Eagle, a scout is required to earn 21 merit badges, including first aid, personal fitness, various citizenship badges, communications, cooking, personal management, swimming, hiking or cycling, camping, family life, and environmental science or sustainability.
Stewart, who earned 28 merit badges, said the easiest to complete was fingerprinting. “You can finish it in under a day,” he said. The toughest, he added was personal finance because it required learning about the intricacies of interest rates and other details most young people don’t want to focus on when planning a major purchase.
The most fun? “I think the one I enjoyed the most was first aid or swimming,” Stewart said. “They taught me a lot of useful skills for safety around the water and treating others.”
Another enjoyable merit badge was fishing, in part, because he was able to go out with Scout Master Chris Remkus on his boat and catch and filet a porgy. Fishing is an activity he continues to enjoy.
Another key element of the pursuit of the Eagle rank is a community service project. Stewart reached out to the Sag Harbor Food Pantry to see if he could be of service, and after consulting with the organization’s leaders, he went about building a pair of teak benches for clients, so they would have a place to rest before or after their visit to the pantry.
To complete the project, Stewart had to supervise other Scouts who, among other things, helped him out at fundraising car washes to cover the estimated $1,200 cost of the project. The benches now sit outside the First Presbyterian (Old Whalers’) Church, where the food pantry is located.
The soft-spoken Stewart is a senior at Pierson High School, where he maintains a nearly 98-percent GPA and will receive an International Baccalaureate diploma when he graduates in June.
During his career at Pierson, he has been involved in a variety of extracurricular activities, from the Model UN, where he served as vice president his sophomore year and president his junior and senior years, and Boys State, which he attended last year at the State University of New York at Morrisville.
Last year, after two years of online courses, he was able to go to England to participate in what he described as “two-week crash course in medicine” offered by the Oxford Scholastica Academy.
Although Stewart plans to attend the College of the Holy Cross, a Jesuit liberal arts school in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he plans to study international studies with a minor in global health, he said he sees a possible future in medicine.
Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming, Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman, and mayors Jim Larocca of Sag Harbor and Christopher Fiore of North Haven, were among the officials to attend Stewart’s Court of Honor. New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. was unable to attend, but sent a proclamation. Other community leaders, representing the Sag Harbor Fire Department, American Legion, and Veterans of Foreign Wars, also attended, as did three other Sag Harbor Eagle Scouts: Max Yardley, Addison Cook, and James Farrell.
Stewart said he had the good fortune of having many dedicated leaders in Scouting, starting with Laurie Barone Schaefer, who was a longtime Cub Scout Den Mother in Sag Harbor, and including Chris and Valerie Remkus, Patrick Witty, and his own father, Jim Stewart.
He said he had also been inspired by the memory of his older sister, Katy, who died of cancer at the age of 12, when he was only 6 years old. “Even though I was so young, I remember a lot of the things she did for me,” he said. “She always had a really positive impact on my life.”
Stephen J. Kotz on May 3, 2023