Eagle Scout in 1968, Three-Star General Since: MTSU’s Keith Huber Earns Scouting’s Outstanding Award
Keith Huber earned his Eagle Scout rank in 1968, seven years before he graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. This month, that same Scouting path led to a new honor: the Middle Tennessee Council of Scouting America presented the retired Army lieutenant general with its Outstanding Eagle Scout Award at a ceremony in Nashville on Sept. 15.
The award is not handed out for the badge itself. It is reserved for Eagle Scouts who go on to excel in their careers well beyond Scouting, at the local, regional or national level. For Huber, the citation covers a 38-year military career and the years since, spent in Murfreesboro.
From West Point to the Blue Raider campus
After retiring from the Army, Huber joined Middle Tennessee State University in January 2015. Today he is the university's senior adviser for veterans and leadership initiatives and serves as a distinguished visiting professor. That same year he founded the Charlie and Hazel Daniels Veterans and Military Family Center, which MTSU describes as the largest and most comprehensive facility of its kind at any public or private university in Tennessee. If you have read our coverage of the center's recent expansion, this is the person whose idea it was.
Huber was nominated by MTSU Trustee J.B. Baker, who is himself a recipient of the same Outstanding Eagle Scout Award, a small reminder of how many Scouts quietly turn up in the leadership of Middle Tennessee institutions.
What Scouting taught the general
Asked about the connection, Huber said Scouting taught him that individual skills are a requirement for leaders, and he tied the Scout oath to the principles of military leadership. It is a neat through-line: the merit badges a teenager collects in 1968 look a lot like the discipline, preparation and service expected of an officer decades later.
Eagle is the highest rank in Scouting. Turning that early achievement into a lifetime of service, from a 38-year Army career to a campus center built for military-connected students and their families, is exactly what this particular honor is meant to recognize.
For Murfreesboro, the news is a good excuse to notice who is behind a building people walk past every day. The veterans center on the MTSU campus exists in large part because a former Eagle Scout decided that students coming home from service deserved a place that felt like theirs. Congratulations to General Huber on a well-earned recognition.
