Girls eager to be C.O.’s first female Cub Scouts

The Cub Scouts are no longer just for boys.

Starting this fall, the nearly century-old program started letting girls join the ranks.

The lessons however, remain the same — and that’s what girls, including 10-year-old Leah May, are looking forward to.

“And you can learn how to whittle, do a bow and arrow, BB gun, and I think it’s wrist slingshot. I think,” May said Tuesday.

When Bend Troop 230 Cubmaster Mark Krummen heard that the Boy Scouts of America was starting to accept girls, he was thrilled.

So when he found four girls to join the pack, which is the minimum number needed to make it official, he jumped at the opportunity to make the program more inclusive.

“Our pack has always been kind of ‘break the norm,’ and we try as do as much as we can,” Krummen said. “We have a lot of girls already that have a number of brothers in our Cub Scout pack, so they’ve been kind of shadowing with their brothers.”

“And a lot of our families were very accepting along with our leadership team. So there was no hesitation right from the start,” he said.

There’s wasn’t much hesitation from the girls, either — including Niya Sullivan, who was one of the first girls interested in joining the Scouts.

“I wanted to be in Cub Scouts because I wanted to be an Eagle Scout like my dad,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan had been trying to join the Cub Scouts for months, but four girls are needed to make it official.

And finally, that happened.

Out of 42 families involved in Troop 230, only one family chose to leave the program because of the decision to allow girls in.

“I’m most excited about learning how to use a bow and arrow,” May said.

“It was just outdoorsy, and I like doing rock climbing and fly fishing and stuff,” Sullivan said.

The girls’ parents are just as excited as the girls.

Eagle Scout Kevin Sullivan said he wanted his oldest daughter to have the same outdoor opportunities and leadership lessons that he had.

“The reality is, she lives in that world anyhow,” he said. “We go to school with boys and girls, and that’s the world and the values that Scouting teaches, and what it prepares them for really aren’t exclusive to young men. They apply to everyone.”

The girls said being outnumbered by boys doesn’t bother them. And they had some advice for other girls considering joining the Scouts.

“I would say: It is actually really fun, and all the people that are in the dens are very nice, and you learn a lot of really cool things,” May said.

“I would say: Don’t be scared, because it’s really fun and it’s outdoorsy and you do a lot of fun stuff,” Sullivan said.

Troop 230 is one of the first in Central Oregon to integrate girls into its program, but several other programs have now started the process of bringing in girls.

Currently, girls are limited to Cub Scouting, which is for ages 7 to 10. But the Boy Scouts of America said it plans on starting a program for older girls in 2019.