Anthony Grummer, a freshman at Camden Fairview High School, plays football, runs track, hunts and rides bike trails and a four-wheeler for fun. The outdoorsman said he’s “not one of those people that stays around (the house) and plays video games all day. That just bores me.”
Of all his activities, Boy Scouts tops them all. Currently he is a Life Scout and strives to be an Eagle Scout, the Boy Scouts’ highest rank, by next summer. He will turn 16 in two months.
Being a Scout, especially at his level, involves a lot time, service and leadership. This summer he said he worked at Camp Desoto in south Arkansas. There he taught younger Scouts a cycling class and how to earn shotgun and archery merit badges. Grummer and fellow Scouts in Troop 6 of Camden also helped clear debris after the February tornado in Dumas.
His dad, Mark Grummer, is his scoutmaster. They attend St. Louis Church in Camden, where the elder Grummer is a substitute for Sunday school, a Knights of Columbus member and was one of his son’s confirmation teachers. Anthony was confirmed in December 2006.
Grummer said he enjoys time with his dad. “I’m really happy he’s not one of those people that would just drive me there and drop me off. I’m glad he’s active with me.”
Grummer said he has worked at a lot of KC spaghetti dinners, pancake breakfasts and parish bingo nights. He has also gone “trick-or-treating for canned foods” for a local food bank.
Though he seems to have little time for anything else, Grummer said practicing his faith is “very important to me.”
On Sundays, he goes to Mass with his dad and also attends Grace Baptist Church with his mom, Sherry. He admits differences in how the churches practice Christianity can be confusing. This leads to many family dinner conversations about what each church teaches.
Grummer said most of his friends are not Catholic, and they have many faith-based discussions. He often attends his friends’ churches on Wednesday nights, which concerned his dad at first.
However, after a year of this, he said, “I still have my beliefs in the Catholic Church. Nothing they’ll say will change that.”
In fact, Grummer has brought many friends to his church; one has even expressed interest in becoming Catholic.
To him what matters most about being Catholic is “informing other people about it,” he said. “And service comes right in behind that.”
The Eagle Scout service project he is planning is to build a memorial prayer garden around an existing Mary statue outside St. Louis Church.
While mowing and weed eating the grounds, Grummer said, he noticed how the ground cover had overtaken the statue. He plans to clear it off, bleach it and put stones and benches down around it. The stones and benches would be engraved with deceased parishioners’ names.
He said he wanted to do this project because “the church has always been there for me.”

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