Editor’s note: Este artículo está traducido al español.

A Las Vegas teen’s path to an extremely rare accomplishment started by sculpting a dog out of clay and was completed on roller skates.

Jesse “Nico” Del Carmen has earned all 141 possible merit badges from Scouting BSA, formerly known as the Boy Scouts of America. Years of effort got him badges for archery, camping, first aid and canoeing, dentistry, scuba diving, cybersecurity, music, basketry, reptile and amphibian study and much more. He is also, of course, at the top rank of Eagle Scout — an accomplishment that “only” requires 21 merit badges alongside a service project.

According to the website meritbadgeknot.com, out of an estimated 130 million youths who have participated in Scouting BSA since it was founded in 1910, only 644 are verified to have earned all the merit badges offered — or 0.0008%.

“I always knew how rare it was. So that’s what kind of motivated me,” said Del Carmen, a member of Troop 912 in Summerlin and a senior at Palo Verde High School. “Then a few years ago, a guy in our troop got it, and the news came and they talked to him, we all took photos. I was like, OK, that would be really cool … I was like, I would love to be that guy right now.”

Scouting begins in kindergarten. Those are the Cub Scouts in navy blue uniforms. This is when Del Carmen joined, starting at the Tiger rank. In middle school, Cub Scouts become scouts in the now-coed Scouting BSA. This is where the familiar merit badges begin.

Del Carmen’s first badge was for sculpture. He made a bust, then made a figure of his dog.

“I remember that class because I did it with some of the buddies in my troop. So I was like, OK, these badges are actually fun,” he said.

Each badge has an experience tied to it.

His hardest-earned badge was for backpacking. The most fun one was whitewater rafting, which he did along the Colorado River in Moab, Utah. For his final badge, skating, he elected to lace up four-wheeled roller skates at the Crystal Palace rink.

“When I first started scouting, I went to all the opportunities to get these badges,” he said. “When I became an Eagle, I had around 70, and then I was like, oh, there’s only 70 more. Why not?”

He earned his final 70 badges in two years. His adult Scouting leaders signed off on the skating badge Dec. 10, one day before his 18th birthday. Once a Scout turns 18, their days as an active, badge-earning Scout are over. But the benefits remain.

After visiting with an orthodontist for the dentistry badge, he’s become interested in the field as a future career.

Earning the music badge reawakened his interest in that too, and he got a drum kit for Christmas. He continues to go backpacking — just a few weeks ago he and friends trekked through the snow and ice of Mount Charleston. He’s made longtime friends through scouting and become close with his dad, who has accompanied him on countless outings.

“Earning these badges, I learned a lot about dedication and really setting a goal and actually working towards it, not just thinking about the goal,” Del Carmen said.

Troop 912 Scoutmaster Ron Graham said he is “extraordinarily proud” of the kids who have come through his troop. In addition to having two boys in the past four years earn every merit badge, about 110 kids have made the Eagle rank over the 21 years the troop has been meeting. That’s about 1 out of every 3 scouts in Troop 912, while nationally, the rate is about 4% or 5%, he said. He credits the parents for the high-achieving culture.

Paolo Del Carmen has been about as much a part of the scouts as his son. He’s an assistant scoutmaster for the troop, has driven around the West in pursuit of badges earned in the rugged outdoors, and even volunteered to be dunked into the cold Colorado so his son could demonstrate that he can rescue someone from the water.

“We’ve gone through a lot of adventures for sure,” Paolo Del Carmen said. “That’s the best part about Scouting, is it gives you a template to have these adventures that you normally wouldn’t do.”

Graham said the most important part of Scouting for children is learning “to be great citizens.”

“To be of service to others is a huge component of it — the ‘do a good deed every day’ is part of the expectations. They can’t advance without doing service to others,” he said. “So they can have a lot of fun, they can have a lot of adventure, and they can learn a lot of things, but they have to also serve others in order to get ahead.”

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