After Scouts BSA moved to allow girls to join its ranks in 2019, two Brookfielders are the first women in town, and in their troop, to become Eagle Scouts.
Best friends Salma Hummos, 19, and Abigail Sokol, 18, both members of Troop 90, were both granted the organization’s highest rank Wednesday, May 22, at a ceremony in McCook, the culmination of years’ worth of work from them both. Troop 90 members Kyle Lyth and Connor Stenson also became Eagle Scouts at the ceremony.
“I believe that through Boy Scouts, and especially for my Eagle project, I’ve really gained a lot in my leadership skills, my technical skills, even soft skills — everything,” Hummos said in an interview. “Altogether, I feel like Boy Scouts as a program has made me a lot better.”
“If anyone’s planning on joining Boy Scouts, or just about it, or even in Boy Scouts, I’d highly recommend that they consider looking into some of the leadership positions,” said Sokol, who was a patrol leader in her troop. “The base set of skills is a lot of fun, and I love camping. It’s nice to know how to camp. I think the leadership side of things definitely carries over far more than anything else to everyday life.”
Although Hummos and Sokol, who both just completed their first years in college, grew their friendship — and themselves — through their time as part of Troop 90, they came up in the troop through different paths.
Hummos joined Scouts as an eighth grader in 2019, a founding member of Troop 90G. While the boys and girls in Troop 90 are technically split into two troops, they act mostly as one troop.
“My brother was actually in the troop before me, and my mom was like, ‘Hey, do you want to join Boy Scouts?’” Hummos said. “I used to be in Girl Scouts, but it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do, because there was a lot more sitting around and doing more domestic merit badges, versus actually camping or anything, so you know I jumped at the opportunity.”
Hummos said that when she first joined Scouts, “It was just confusing for everybody because nobody had ever seen girls in Boy Scouts before.”
“In our troop, luckily, it was just really nice. Everything was really cohesive, but when I went to more council or chapter things, it was more of a pushback,” she said. “Nobody said anything, but you can still tell that there’s a layer on the room. ‘Why are there women here?’”
Sokol’s journey through Scouts started years before Hummos’. The Eagle Scout, who is transgender, initially joined as a Cub Scout around first grade, but she nearly quit before moving up through the ranks.
“I was originally put into Cub Scouts. Not always a choice, but my parents wanted me to do it, and then I wasn’t very interested in it,” she said in an interview. “I almost didn’t join Boy Scouts after completing Cub Scouts, but going on the campouts made me pretty interested in continuing to do it.”
Both Eagle Scouts agreed the sense of community they gained through the Scouts program was one of their favorite parts.
“I just really love them. My leaders, the other girls that joined with me,” Hummos said. “There were nine of us at the beginning, and the majority of us were siblings of brothers who all went through Boy Scouts, so being able to have that opportunity and such a warm community around me was just amazing.”
“A lot of my friends early on were through Scouts because I had been homeschooled until high school,” Sokol said.
She added that meeting new friends through Scouts helped her figure out her transgender identity.
“I actually came out to Salma before anyone else,” she said.
Sokol said she initially came out to other members of the troop before telling the adults involved, but, ultimately, “it was a really accepting environment;” however, she said she received pushback from members of other troops.
“Every now and again, we’ll go to summer camps or to jamborees, other events where you interact with other troops, and some of them definitely have a more conservative hardline position, I’d say,” she said. “There were some comments made by other troops in regards to being in Boy Scouts. And definitely, they were maybe not the greatest, but I’d say my troop was pretty supportive.”
When it came to the act of scouting itself, Hummos and Sokol had their own preferences. Of the merit badges each of them collected prior to becoming an Eagle Scout — 21 at minimum — Hummos said her favorites were the ones for activities she had never done outside of Scouts.
“Welding. I got to do some kayaking, which I have never been able to do before,” she said. “Canoeing, stand-up paddleboarding, automative maintenance. I would go over nuclear science, chemistry, just a wide range of random merit badges.”
Sokol’s tastes were a bit more stereotypical to what one associates with scouting.
“I really liked wilderness survival. I think that was my favorite one. I’ve always really liked the camping side of things. It’s been my primary focus throughout all of Scouts,” she said. “For now, I live in Colorado, and I’ve used the skills I got through wilderness survival to build lots of shelters when I go backpacking or hiking.”
To become Eagle Scouts, both Hummos and Sokol had to complete service projects, showing off their leadership skills while helping the community.
For her project, Hummos led a group of volunteers to rebrick the shed at the Fisher House at Hines V.A. Hospital, which had become worn down. She said one hard part of the project was organizing it — renting a truck and transporting the new bricks only to realize it was too cold outside and the volunteer group would have to reschedule.
Sokol said her project involved creating a community garden at Eight Corners. With some help from volunteers, she tore up cracked asphalt from an unused parking lot and laid down dirt, including an area with gravel for a social firepit.
“We planted just grass and then wildflowers in the patches, sort of as an area for more plants and also just humans to enjoy,” she said.
Now that they’ve achieved Scouts’ highest rank, they both have plans for the future. Sokol is studying computer science at the Colorado School of Mines; Hummos will study biomedical engineering at the College of DuPage in the fall after studying at Northern Illinois University for her first year.
Still, both Eagle Scouts encourage others to join the organization. For the “majority of troops nowadays, I would highly recommend girls join,” Hummos said.
“They’re changing their branding to just be Scouting America, where they’re trying to make it as inclusive as possible, especially for girls,” she said. “There’s so many opportunities for us as women now, which is great.”
