Richard E Becker

Beloved Scouter and friend of the Yankee Clipper Council, Richard E. Becker has Gone Home!

Richard passed away at home last evening surround by friends and family. Richard dedicated his life to serving the community of Haverhill and the organizations he loved the most. Below is a copy of the biography from the Eagle Scout Recognition Banquet in which the Eagle Class of 2009 was named in honor of Richard.

Richard E. Becker joined the Scouting movement at a time when a boy had to pass the Tenderfoot Rank even before
he could become a Boy Scout. The year was 1934. Three years later Richard, along with over 27,000 other Scouts
and by invitation of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, attended the very first National Jamboree held in Washington, D.C.

On January 24, 1940, Richard E. Becker became an Eagle Scout.

Richard went on to graduate from the Bentley School of Accounting and establish himself as a Public Accountant.

Scouting, however, was not a thing of his past; he went on to serve as the Scoutmaster for Troop 1, Haverhill, chartered by the Grace United Methodist Church, for over 25 years. In 1953 he attended the third Wood Badge course held in America and became the 97th Scouter in America to earn his Wood Badge Beads. He served for six years as Scoutmaster for Brownsea training courses.

He holds life-time memberships in the YCC Eagle Scout Association, the National Eagle Scout Association and the United Methodist Church Scouters’ Association. Among his many awards earned are the United Methodist Church Cross and Flame, in 1989, for service to youth and Scouting through the Methodist Church; the Silver Wreath Award from the National Eagle Scout Association in 1992; the District Award of Merit in 1995, the Daniel Carter Beard Masonic Award in 2008 and the highest honor any council can bestow on a volunteer, the Silver Beaver Award in 1965 by the former Lone Tree Council.

Through Richard’s tenure in Scouting he has had the good fortune and opportunity to meet many notable figures in the Scouting movement, including E. Urner Goodman, co-founder of the Order of the Arrow, William “Green Bar Bill” Hillcourt, author of numerous Boy Scout handbooks and training syllabuses and a member of the National Professional Staff, and Lady Baden-Powell, wife of the founder of Boy Scouting and in her own right the founder of Girl Guides.

Richard is a certified lay minister with the United Methodist Church and founder of the Pentucket Educational and Charitable Foundation for the enrichment of the youth of Haverhill. In 1983 he was awarded the Haverhill Citizenship Award.

May 13, 2010