Newport boy’s Eagle Scout rank a rare height for 12-year-old

A 12-year-old Newport Beach boy received his Eagle Scout badge this week, becoming the youngest Boy Scout to reach that rank in Orange County this year.

Patrick Beemer, a seventh-grader at Harbor Day School in Corona del Mar, completed a service project and earned 30 Eagle merit badges in areas including good citizenship, camping, swimming and lifesaving ability.

Marty Cutrone, director of strategic alliances for the Orange County Council of the Boy Scouts of America, said it’s rare for boys as young as 12 to reach the highest Scouting distinction.

“It demonstrates for me that this young man has an extraordinary level of ingenuity and goal achievement to pull this off,” Cutrone said.

Only 4% of those who enter the Boy Scouts program earn the Eagle rank, according to Cutrone. Most do so around age 17.

“We tried to slow him down,” said Patrick’s mother, Julia Beemer, “but he was determined.”

For his Eagle service project, Patrick built a 146-foot fence at Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park in south Orange County, something park rangers had wanted as a way to separate their property from condominiums next door, Beemer said.

To do the project, she said, Patrick had to raise funds, put together a scale drawing, buy lumber, find volunteers and supervise construction of the fence. He ended up raising more money than he needed, so he donated the remaining $1,000 to Orange County Parks.

The achievement wasn’t without drawbacks.

“Patrick plays soccer year-round and had to miss a lot of games in order to meet the requirements for camping and all those things,” Beemer said. “There’s a lot of sacrifice you have to make to be successful.”

Still, Patrick, a member of Troop 741, thought this was the best time in his life to become an Eagle Scout.

“He knew that his life isn’t going to get any slower,” his mother said. “He wanted to get it done before all the things he’s interested in doing got to be so much that he’d drop the ball. And you do see that a lot, unfortunately.”

According to Cutrone, Orange County produces about 700 Eagle Scouts per year.

But even after Tuesday night’s court of honor, the formal ceremony recognizing Patrick’s achievement, Beemer said her son isn’t done.

“He’s all into Scouting,” she said. “So I think he’s going to stay with it until they kick him out.”