Benjamin Dale Robbins, 18, born and raised in Kailua-Kona, has earned the highest advancement the Boy Scouts of America offers to Scouts, the Eagle Scout Award.
Robbins was recognized in ceremonies on Sunday at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority Gateway Visitor’s Center in Kailua-Kona.
A member of Troop 26-Holualoa, first chartered in 1920, Robbins is one of only about 4 percent of all Boy Scouts who attain the Eagle rank, according to Scoutmaster Dylan Mabuni.
Each candidate must demonstrate certain outdoor skills of self reliance, earn a diverse core of 21 merit badges, successfully demonstrate team leadership and complete a community-based service project to earn his Eagle rank.
Robbins completed a total of 41 merit badges and his service project in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, requiring lengthy approval and preparation, involved designing, fabricating, geo-locating and installing 20 Emergency Location Markers in areas of the park where visitors have often become lost.
According to the HVNP, the project was the first known use of the simple and intuitive United States National Grid coordinates for Emergency Locations Markers (ELMs) in the state.
Robbins has served as senior patrol leader and troop guide and received Scouting’s National Outdoor Award for 130 nights of camping over 200 miles of hikes, as well as the U.S. National Parks Scout Ranger award.
Robbins, a member of Solid Rock Ministries and a recent Kealakehe High School graduate, was active three years with the high school robotics team, state science fair and for two years with the Kealakehe MoonRIDERS initiative, in collaboration with NASA and PISCES, to send the first high school-built experiment, an electro-dynamic dust shield, to the surface of the moon next fall aboard a private SpaceX launch. He helped pioneer and teach in the first week-long STEM camps for middle-schoolers in West Hawaii and continues as a local Community Emergency Response Team member,
He is the son of Allan and Dee Robbins of Kailua-Kona.