by Mike Matzinger
Gerald R. Ford (1913–2006) was the only Eagle Scout to have served as President of the United States. Born Leslie Lynch King Jr. in Omaha, Nebraska, he was adopted as an infant by Gerald R. Ford Sr. and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He joined Boy Scout Troop 15 in 1924 and earned the rank of Eagle Scout on November 11, 1927, a milestone he later described as one of the proudest moments of his life.
Ford excelled both academically and athletically. At the University of Michigan, he was a standout on the varsity football team and helped win multiple national titles. He declined opportunities to play professionally and instead pursued academics, graduating from Yale Law School in 1941. His legal career was soon interrupted by World War II, during which he served with distinction in the U.S. Navy, rising to the rank of lieutenant commander before leaving the service in 1946.
His political career began in 1949 when he was elected to represent Michigan’s 5th Congressional District, a position he held for 25 years. In 1973, after Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned, President Richard Nixon appointed Ford as vice president. Less than a year later, Nixon himself resigned amid the Watergate scandal, and Ford assumed the presidency, dedicating his time in office to restoring dignity and trust to the institution.
Ford never lost his connection to Scouting. He received the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award in 1970 and the Silver Buffalo Award in 1995. In 1978, he appeared in a Boy Scouts of America ad campaign dressed in uniform with the slogan “once a Scout, always a Scout.” In 1995, the Western Michigan Shores Council was renamed the Gerald R. Ford Council in his honor.
When Ford passed away in December 2006 at the age of 93, Scouts honored him during his state funeral. In Grand Rapids, 400 Eagle Scouts lined the road to his presidential museum as an honor guard, a final tribute to a president who embodied the values of Scouting throughout his life.
https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/the-fords/gerald-ford/biography
