Minnesota girls among first female class of Eagle Scouts to be recognized Sunday

First female class achieves Eagle Scout rank in Northern Star Council

Four young women are now the first girls in the Northern Star Council to become Eagles Scouts, the highest rank in Scouts BSA.

(FOX 9) - A group of Minnesota girls will be among a history-making class of Eagle Scouts honored during a ceremony this weekend.

The ceremony on Sunday will mark the first class of girls to reach the level of Eagle Scout, two years after the Boy Scouts began allowing girls to join the organization.

Eagle Scout is the highest level for the scouts, and the girls had to collect 21 merit badges to reach the rank. In October, we spoke with Skyler Harteneck, Isabella Tunney, Sarah Reisdorf, and Rebecca Meger, the first girls to reach the rank within the Northern Star Council. Only six percent of scouts in total ever reach the rank.

The girls told us they easily surpassed the 21 badge threshold, with Tunney collecting a whopping 137 merit badges by last October.

"And the best thing about my merit badge journey is that I got to try out all these new experiences that I really would not have done at school or at home," said Tunney. "It’s really unique to Scouting to be able to try out of all these things."

Sunday night, the "Be the Change" ceremony will honor the new class of female Eagle Scouts. It is set to start at 7 p.m. central and will stream online. You can learn more about the event by clicking here.

While the Boy Scouts honor their new girl members, the Girl Scouts of the United States has bristled at the change in policy, filing a lawsuit last December accusing the Boy Scouts of sparking a recruitment war between the two youth groups.

As of last year, 625 girls have joined the ranks of the Boy Scouts in the Northern Star Council.