Brian Elders really didn’t want to join Cub Scouts. He knew other 10-year-olds at his school who made fun of boys who were in Scouts, and that didn’t sound like fun. However, Brian’s father, Dale Elders, had been involved with Scouting briefly during his childhood and he thought that Brian might enjoy it. Besides, Dale says, “I didn’t want him sitting around the house playing Pac-Man all the time.”
Brian and Dale disagree about how forcefully Dale pushed the issue. Brian remembers thinking, “No, no, no. I don’t want to go!” Meanwhile, Dale says that he never insisted that Brian join; he simply wanted him to attend a meeting. After all, how would he know if he liked it if he never went?
In the end, Brian went to a meeting and agreed to go on a campout. There, he was impressed with the dinner of “silver turtles”—a Scout campout staple made of seasoned meat and vegetables, wrapped in aluminum foil and cooked on hot coals. He also learned about the many merit badges he could earn. “From that point on,” he says, “I was hooked.”
In the summer of 1991, soon after Brian had “crossed over” from Cub Scouts to Boy Scout Troop 907 in Montgomery, Dale and other Scout dads began thinking about starting another troop that would serve the quickly growing population center near Lake Conroe. They envisioned a troop with fun activities for the boys and lots of parental involvement. They soon learned that Troop 491, which met in Montgomery, had been deactivated decades earlier, and they applied to have the troop reactivated. With six boys—just one more than the minimum requirement for a troop—the newly-reactivated Troop 491 had its first meeting at April Sound Church on October 21, 1991. Dale became the troop’s first scoutmaster.
It wasn’t long before Brian set his sights on making Eagle Scout, the highest rank in the Boy Scouts of America. “I remember them saying not everybody makes it to Eagle, and I thought, ‘I think I can do it,’” Brian says. “I wanted to achieve it because I thought it was such a lofty goal. I loved the challenge of it.” He began mapping out a plan, thinking about which elective merit badges he would like to earn. Leaders told him it was a great honor, and that it would open doors for him later in life.
On December 21, 1995, Brian completed the requirements for Eagle Scout, becoming Troop 491’s first. Bubba Henson, whose father Danny Henson became Troop 491’s second scoutmaster in 1996, earned the rank of Eagle Scout in 1998. Brian and Bubba did not realize that their accomplishments were the beginning of a robust troop tradition.
About the time Brian became an Eagle Scout, Danny found an old piece of iron he made into a blade. He put a handle on it, creating a tomahawk, and an idea took shape. The tomahawk was presented to Brian at his Eagle Court of Honor. “We kind of made up the rules as we went,” Danny says. “Each new Eagle puts his mark on it and hands it off to the next Eagle.” Today, it is decorated so flamboyantly, it’s hard to see the tomahawk itself.
In early 2025, Brian received an unexpected message on social media from a friend he hadn’t seen since his high school days. “Some Boy Scout troop,” the message said, was trying to reach him to invite him to a celebration for the troop’s 100 Eagle Scouts. Brian thought, “100 Eagles!”
Unbeknownst to Brian, a social media flurry was in progress, and most of the troop’s former members who had achieved the rank of Eagle between 1995 and 2025 were located and invited to a celebration on June 7. Many of these former Scouts, like Brian, were amazed the troop had produced so many Eagle Scouts. It is estimated only four to six percent of Boy Scouts achieve this honor.
Brian—and many of the other men who attended Troop 491 meetings at April Sound Church—were also astounded Troop 491 now has its own building, a distinct rarity among troops. “That blew me away,” Brian says, “and everything that’s in it. The history and the Wall of Eagles, the old flags. That, to me, was pretty incredible.”
In its first life, the Troop 491 Scout Hut was a fire station in Lake Conroe Forest. During the early 2000s, Troop 491 acquired the building and, thanks to donations and lots of boy hours, a warehouse-like shell was transformed into a remarkable meeting place. One former Scout remembers tearing the inside of the building down to the studs, then rebuilding it. “It was a lot of work,” he says. “And that is an understatement.” Today, the Scout Hut is equipped with a large meeting room, a full kitchen and several patrol rooms—hidey-holes where boys can make plans, engage in patrol activities, and work on merit badges and rank advancement.
One of the most beloved features of the Scout Hut is the Wall of Eagles, where the names of the troop’s Eagle Scouts are displayed on wooden plaques. It’s there to honor the Eagles, as well as to inspire future Eagles. “We are fortunate to have a scout hut permanently set up for us. The boys walk in here and see the Wall of Eagles. I think they are drawn to it and want to be a part of it,” says Kris Coates, Troop 491’s current scoutmaster. Kris hopes his son Konner will eventually make Eagle Scout, but acknowledges attaining the rank of Eagle is something a boy must aspire to on his own. “I can only provide the boot to the butt,” he says with a smile.
Today, Troop 491 is focused not only on perpetuating the troop’s strong Eagle tradition, but on encouraging other worthwhile goals, too. One of those is for Scouts to take part in Scouting America’s National Youth Leadership Training (NYLT). In previous years, adults trained boys when they moved into new troop positions, says former Scoutmaster Mark O’Neill, who introduced NYLT to the troop. Today, when Scouts graduate from NYLT, they are invited to teach younger boys who are elected to troop positions. “We want this to be a true boy-led troop,” Mark says. “It’s a privilege for them to come back and teach.”
Mark says Troop 491 also emphasizes membership in Order of the Arrow, the honor society of Scouts, and encourages the boys to attend high-adventure camps such as Philmont Scout Ranch in the mountains of New Mexico; Northern Tier in northern Minnesota; and Sea Base in the Florida Keys.
The boys have benefited from the troop’s excellence. Consider Daniel Dean, who has been in Scouting since he was six years old, starting with Tiger Cubs. When he was about nine or 10 years old, he met an Eagle Scout. That was all it took. He crossed over to Boy Scouts during the pandemic, but persevered. He enjoys high-adventure camps, especially Sea Base, and appreciates learning outdoor skills that “a lot of people don’t know,” he says. In October 2024, he became Troop 491’s 95th Eagle Scout. Daniel now has 61 merit badges—40 more than the requirement for Eagle.
On July 13, William Larson, having completed his Eagle project, the required paperwork, and a final conference, officially became Troop 491’s 100th Eagle Scout. Like Daniel, he joined Tiger Cubs when he was six years old and has been in Scouts ever since. He is now 16 years old. At first, the idea of completing an Eagle project was “daunting,” he says, but he “took a step back, looked at it, and zoomed into the finer details.” Like Brian, who became an Eagle Scout 30 years before, he remembers thinking, “This is something I can do.”
The tradition c
