Autistic Youth Earns Eagle Scout Rank, With Merit Badges To Spare
(CBS) – Eighteen-year-old Dylan Miller says Autism means his brain works extra hard to learn new things, but apparently it works well enough: He's earned Eagle Scout rank from Troop 32 in Berwyn.
Eagle rank requires 21 Merit Badges. Miller earned 28, including swimming. He says that was the most difficult because he had to retrieve a brick from the swimming pool floor.
But he said a fellow scout from troop 32 worked with him until he could submerge and retrieve without problem.
He said his Eagle Scout project was building an 18-inch-wide path from Morton West to the school's athletic field.
Miller says he has dual ambitions. He wants to be a pizza chef and a professional guitar player.
Dylan's mother, Dyann, says her son sees autism as a gift. Dylan says it slows things down but he'll deal with it because "God gave it to me."
Miller receives his Eagle Scout rank from in a ceremony Saturday with scout Troop 32 at Saint Leonard's church in Berwyn.
The assistant scoutmaster, Tony Capua, says Miller hadn't flourished at other scout troops. But Capua says at the urging of two friends, Miller joined Troop 32, rejected a track for special needs scouts, and scored 7 more than the number of merit badges needed for Eagle.
