A search for "lost" Eagles continues inside and outside the Church as Boy Scouts of America attempts to locate and identify recipients of the Eagle Scout award worldwide in 1990 - the Year of the Eagle.

Through national and local media and direct mail campaigns, Scouting is attempting to build on the esteem held by the general public for Eagle Scouting and encourage local recognition for Eagle Scouts and the values the award embodies.The search has already led to the identification of 10,000 LDS Eagle Scouts, according to Bob Mills, director of Mormon relationships for the Boy Scouts of America.

"We have been inundated with names," Mills said, "and we have received many more that have not yet been recorded. We give all of the names to Boy Scouts of America for their recognition and promotion."

He said the Mormon Relationships office will be accepting names and addresses until March 1.

Mills noted that some wards and stakes have planned special banquets or other activities to honor Eagle Scouts living within their boundaries. Those types of events are implemented on the local level and are not planned Churchwide.

The Church has a great legacy of Eagle Scouts, and its members receive the award at more than three times the national rate. According to Mills, about 6 percent of LDS Scouts receive the badge, compared with fewer than 2 percent nationwide. He said about 7,500 Church members earn the Eagle award each year.

It is not uncommon to have multiple recipients in a family, or three or more generations where the Eagle tradition is passed from grandfather to father to son.

"Every young man will not become an Eagle Scout," noted President Thomas S. Monson, second counselor in the First Presidency, "but it certainly is a satisfaction to the young man who does achieve this high recognition. It shows that he's been able to study, to prepare, to discipline himself, and to achieve. And if a boy can do that in Scouting, he can do it in life.

"However, we should not put down the young man who does not achieve that high award, but give him credit for the effort he has made."

One reason there is much emphasis placed on Eagle Scouting within the Church is that more than 90 percent of LDS Eagles serve full-time missions, according to Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone, Young Men general president and member of the First Quorum of the Seventy.

Elder Featherstone related an account about a former chief Scout executive of Boy Scouts of America visiting the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. The executive asked all those who had been in Scouting to stand.

"Everyone stood up," said Elder Featherstone. "He was shocked. He then asked how many were Eagle Scouts. About one-third remained standing.

"Later that day we met with the First Presidency and the Scouting executive told them, `Now I know why you have Scouting in the Church - it's to prepare your young men to become missionaries.'

"And he's right. That's about what we do. When I was a mission president, you could see it in nearly every young man who walked off the airplane. You could almost identify every Eagle Scout, because of their training. And many of them rose up and became the leaders of the mission. That wasn't because of preference, but because they had developed positive habits and cultivated leadership skills."