Twin Teen Girls From Millburn Among First Female Eagle Scouts

MILLBURN, NJ — Here's something you don't see every day: Female Eagle Scouts. Especially twin female Eagle Scouts.

This year is the first year that young women can earn the honor from the Boy Scouts of America.

Bridget and Morgan Lomax of Millburn will be part of the Eagle Court of Honor on March 18, 2021 at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in their town.

Both were founding members of one of the largest all-girl Boy Scouts of America troops in the area, BSA Troop 19 in Short Hills, founded in February 2019. That same month, the Boy Scouts allowed girls to join the organization as scouts.

Troop 19 is part of the Lenape Trails District in the Northern New Jersey Council.

Both girls have held several positions of leadership in the troop, including Senior Patrol Leader (Bridget as the 2nd SPL, Morgan as the 3rd and current SPL), Patrol Leader and Quartermaster (Morgan), and instructor (both girls as of Jan 2021).

Eagle Scout projects

To attain the rank, scouts have to complete a public service project and several other tasks.

Bridget’s Eagle project involved creating a music video performance of Scouts and non-Scouts alike that was shown to residents of a local nursing home on their internal TV system. She coordinated volunteers to help.

The nursing home residents have been prevented from receiving visitors in person due to the COVID pandemic. Catering was also provided.

Here is a link to Bridget and her sister singing a duet of “Sisters” from the 1954 Bing Crosby movie "White Christmas," part of her project’s video: https://youtu.be/d_-uMHQ2Z3g.

Morgan’s Eagle Project involved building 10 bat houses at three different locations in three counties: the Great Swamp in Chatham, two parks managed by West Windsor Township (Van Nest Park and Rogers Preserve), and Laurelwood Arboretum in Wayne.

She trained volunteers and they built the bat houses under her direction at her house on three dates in a socially-distanced manner (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd-WfJd-iOg ). The 10 bat houses can house 1,500 bats.

The girls have also been invited to sing at a variety of scouting events.

Outside of scouting, they are freshmen at the Academy of St. Elizabeth in Morristown, where Bridget is freshman class President and Morgan the vice-president.

They are leading large service projects at their high school (Bridget helping institute plastic recycling as part of the national Bags to Benches Program, and Morgan spearheading classmates reading children’s books on video for use by preschoolers from the Summit YMCA).

At Millburn Middle School, both girls were student ambassadors, were eighth grade peer leaders of the year for their respective peer leadership groups, and were active in music and theater.

The girls also are very interested in learning foreign languages. Both are nearly fluent for their age in Mandarin Chinese.

They each have numerous merit badges, with Morgan having 46 and Bridget 69, and both girls have over 50 camping nights. They also have been inducted into the Order of the Arrow (scouting honor society; Lenapehoking Lodge IX) and participated with many troop members as the 1st girls’ BSA troop to walk in the NYC Veteran’s Day Parade in 2019.

The girls are very committed to environmental causes, wildlife preservation, and sustainable living.

The scoutmaster of the group is Dan Cannon.

Three other girls in the troop are eligible to be in the inaugural class of female Eagle scouts, once they finish their projects and complete their reviews.

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