This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Sept. 19, 2011 - WASHINGTON - As one of 29 Eagle Scouts in the 112th Congress, U.S. Rep. Sam Graves takes pride in shouting out top scouts in his northwest Missouri district.
In fact, Graves, R-Tarkio, has mentioned scouting in 1,067 of his 1,543 speeches or "extensions of remarks" that are inserted in the Congressional Record, according to an analysis by the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call.
Graves "has certainly earned his tribute badge!" during his decade in Congress, commented a columnist for the newspaper's "Heard on the Hill" gossip segment.
In a year-by-year breakdown, the analysis found that Graves' scouting mentions have dropped off a bit since the peak years of 2007-09, when he shouted out scouts 461 times. Since January, he has only mentioned scouts about 74 times.
"Those weren't speeches given on the House floor," explained Jason Klindt, a spokesman for Graves, "they were mostly extension of remarks" -- a common practice in which a lawmaker inserts a written statement into the Congressional Record.
Klindt told the Beacon that most of those remarks honored Missouri scouts -- sometimes including Cub Scouts or Girl Scouts -- who had achieved a special distinction, such as attaining the rank of Eagle Scout (the highest rank in the Boy Scouts.)
The Boy Scouts of America says that more than 6 percent of the 444 men in the current Congress -- including a dozen U.S. senators -- are Eagle Scouts. (In the overall U.S. population, only 1 percent of men are Eagles.) However, 205 members of Congress have been affiliated with scouting in some way, either as scouts or as adult volunteers.
In addition to Graves, Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-St. Louis, is an Eagle Scout, and six of the state's 11 congressmen and senators have been affiliated with scouting. Illinois' congressional delegation boasts nine former scouts, including one Eagle Scout -- Rep. Robert J. Dold of northern Illinois.
When Roll Call asked lawmakers what lessons they had learned from their scouting years, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher , R-Calif., said -- tongue in cheek -- that the most important lesson had been how to handle poisonous snakes.
"That skill has really served me well here on Capitol Hill," the congressman joked.