CRANBERRY TWP — Hailing from a long line of Eagle Scouts, Bridget Scott, 17, of Cranberry Township, tagged along on her first Boy Scout campout at the age of 8, with her dad and brother.

Over the years, she continued to tag along, and has participated in 25 to 30 Boy Scout campouts with her dad and brothers.

While Bridget has the utmost respect for Girl Scouts of America and their service-oriented programs, she was much more drawn to the activities and tenets of the outdoorsy Boy Scouts during her childhood.

So in 2019, she and a handful of other girls founded Boy Scouts of America Troop 6405, which meets alongside Troop 6404, the boys troop, at the Cranberry Elks Lodge.

In October, Bridget earned her Eagle Scout status, which her troop, family and Elks officials celebrated Jan. 21 with a ceremony at the lodge on Perry Highway.

She follows in the footsteps of her grandfather, great uncle, two uncles, father and brother in earning the Boy Scouts’ highest honor.

Bridget, who is a Seneca Valley senior, is the first female Eagle Scout to come out of Troop 6405, which now has 11 members.

Caelan Hinterlang, executive director of Moraine Trails Council of Boy Scouts of America, said there are seven all-female Boy Scouts troops within the council.

A dozen girls in the council’s Scouts BSA program — which is for Scouts aged 11 to 17 — have earned their Eagle Scout status since Boy Scouts of America began allowing girls to join in 2019.

“The benefits of Scouts BSA should benefit everyone,” Hinterlang said. “Nothing proves it quite as much as seeing how motivated these girls are.”

He said girls are very successful at competitive events involving Scouting skills and knowledge held at larger Scouting conventions.

“There have been times they’ve mopped the floor with the boys,” Hinterlang said.

He said the resistance by the public of the decision to allow girls to join Boy Scouts is waning.

“Over the past couple years, any doubts about opening the program up have been quelled by just how well these girls have taken to it,” Hinterlang said.

Tom Pichieri, Troop 6405 assistant scoutmaster, said girls troops must be exclusively girls, and at least one mother or adult female must accompany female Boy Scout troops on campouts.

He said many girls in Troop 6405 have brothers in Troop 6404.

“The girls saw them going canoeing, kayaking and camping and wanted to do those things,” Pichieri said.

Ken Trost, also an assistant scoutmaster for Troop 6405, said some girls are attracted to the worthy service projects offered through Girl Scouts, while some are more interested in adventure.

“The programs are very different,” he said. “It’s just what the girls are looking for.”

Trost and Pichieri were assistant scoutmasters with the boys troop before moving to the girls new troop.

“It’s so much easier,” both men said of leading the 11-through-18-year-old girls.

They said girls are more accepting of helping younger Scouts, are more independent and work together better.

“They don’t form cliques,” Trost said.

Bridget’s brother, Brendan, who is an Eagle Scout, said sisters of a couple of boys in Troop 6404 started talking about forming a female Boy Scouts troop at the Eagle Scout ceremony of a Troop 6404 member.

Brendan, who earned his Eagle Scout in 2016, was thrilled when he found out his little sister would be his Boy Scouts equal.

“I was excited for her,” he said. “We’ve built up quite a family tradition, and I was glad to add another (Eagle Scout.)”

As for Bridget, she will look back fondly on her Eagle Scout project of building an 8-by-8-foot deck with four stairs on a building at Camp Kon-O-Kwee Spencer in Fombell, Beaver County.

She said her troop members provided lots of help, and she learned a lot about measuring twice and cutting once.

“A lot of it was figuring out what needs to be done and the adults using power tools,” Bridget said. “I didn’t know the first thing about building a deck, but their maintenance manager, Tim Shank, walked me through what to do and facilitated (getting) all the supplies and equipment we’d need.”

She and the Scouts worked on the deck for five days last fall.

“It was a cool feeling,” Bridget said of the finished product. “It was a relief that it was done.”

She doesn’t really pay attention to or waste time being concerned about the opinions of those who don’t feel girls belong in Boy Scouts.

“I don’t really care,” Bridget said. “I don’t like to make a big deal of it.”

Bridget, who is undecided on the path she will take after high school, has worked as a camp counselor for the past two summers at Beaumont Scout Reservation in Ashtabula, Ohio.

There, Scouts learn all they need to know to succeed in Boy Scouts. Bridget worked in the Scoutcraft program, which teaches merit badge requirements.

“We teach things like cooking, hiking, wilderness survival, fire safety and orienteering,” Bridget said. “We also teach first-year Scouts BSA knots, fire building, using hand tools and lashings.”

Jeff Scott, Troop 405 scoutmaster and Bridget’s dad, admits he never thought he would live to see a girl earn an Eagle Scout, much less his daughter.

“She always said when she was little that she didn’t want to be a Girl Scout, she wanted to be a Boy Scout, and I said ‘No, you can’t do that,’” Scott recalled.

The drive to be a Boy Scout, Scott assumes, came from having three older brothers who were active Scouts.

“They taught her some of her Scout skills,” Scott said. “She was building fires when she was 7 or 8.”

Scott said he was overjoyed when it was confirmed that Bridget had earned her Eagle Scout status.

“I was thrilled for her and thrilled for the troop,” he said.

He agrees with his assistant scoutmasters that girls are much easier to oversee.

“The girls are good at being self-led,” Scott said. “I don’t have to say ‘You have to do this and you have to do that.’”

He explained that the girls in Troop 6405 cook and clean up without intervention from Scout leaders, get up in the morning without being nagged by their scoutmasters, and genuinely work together well.

“The group of girls we have get along really well and they look out for each other,” Scott said.

All girls aged 11 to 17, not just those from Cranberry Township, are welcome to join Troop 6405.

Troop leaders can be contacted by emailing scoutmaster6405@gmail.com.