Some students find their purpose in college. Others find it long before they set foot on campus. 

One month before the start of his fall semester, freshman Josiah Richardson of Princeton, West Virginia received a significant, and very rare, honor at the 2023 Boy Scout Jamboree. An Eagle Scout and member of Troop 1 in Princeton, he was awarded his 139th merit badge – out of 138. 

Thanks to a technicality in which a badge he’d already earned was discontinued and replaced with another, Richardson was able to surpass the official 138-badge total. In the 113-year history of the Boy Scouts, only 600 Scouts are estimated to have earned every badge, and Richardson may be the first to go beyond that lofty achievement. 

Richardson is now studying Organizational Leadership at the Chambers College.