Saint Vincent de Paul parishioner among inaugural Influential Women of Scouting group

Intermountain Catholic

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Pam Grant (right) was named one of the Influential Women of Scouting by the Great Salt Lake Council of the Boy Scouts of America. She is shown with Mary Ellen Smoot, event committee chair. Photo courtesy of the Boy Scouts of America Great Salt Lake Council

SALT LAKE CITY — A Brownie in the first grade, Pam Grant continued with the Girl Scout program until she was 14, when she became a Candy Striper at Holy Cross Hospital. Those early influences carried across the years as she volunteered to be a den mother for her oldest son’s Boy Scout troop. But even after her youngest son earned his Eagle Scout award in 1995, her involvement with Scouting didn’t end. She currently serves as committee chair for the Boy Scouts of America.

At the district level, she’s a member of the Council Relationship Committee and at diocesan level, she chairs the Great Salt Lake Council Catholic Committee on Scouting, which helps boys and girls earn religious awards. Her husband of 40 years, Art, also is active in Scouting.

Her list of awards is long, but includes the Bronze Pelican and St. George religious emblems for adult scouters, the District Award of Merit and the Silver Beaver.

Those many accomplishments led Grant to be included in the Boy Scouts of America Great Salt Lake Council’s inaugural Influential Women of Scouting group.

"Our goal was to recognize women in Scouting who have been influential in different areas, some on a wider screen, more known, and some in the trenches working with the boys," said Don Bean, a council representative.

Grant was among the 11 women who received the award during a dinner on Oct. 20. She was chosen, Bean said, because of "her commitment to making the Scouting experience better for the boys." Grant not only trained the adult Scout leaders, but also worked with the boys themselves.

Among the criteria for the award were that the women have given noteworthy service to local Boy Scouts over a number of years and that they have experience in service to youth outside of Scouting. In addition to Grant, the recipients were Joyce Beverley, Sherrill Chapman, Zella Dahlquist, Joyce Dupaix, Marina Gonzalez, Nola Marie Hemingway, Gail Miller, Verna Louise Lloyd Newell, Ellen Paine and Jana Powell.

"I was very, very humbled by their choice of adding me to the group," Grant said. "I could not have done it without the boys and the parents all the way along."

Grant has continued to be involved with scouting leadership because "these kids learn the values, and the values that they’re taught at home are reinforced, without realizing that they’re learning them," she said. "One reason I am so adamant about Catholic Scouting is because it is something that the kids need…. It keeps them close to the Catholic Church rather than getting the influence from the outside."

A convert to Catholicism 20 years ago, Grant is active in St. Vincent de Paul Parish. She is a Mass coordinator, Eucharistic minister, lector, hospitality committee member, communication committee member and Communion minister to the sick.