Good Deeds: Longtime Girl Scout sees program’s benefits to girls

Shirley Coombs Mosher is a lifetime Girl Scout member.

At age 79, she lives and breathes Girl Scouts.

Recently, she received the Juliette Gordon Low Achievement Award from the Girl Scouts of Kansas Heartland, the council’s highest honor. The award is named after the founder of the Girl Scouts.

“I like people,” Mosher said. “I see what Girl Scouts can do.”

For her, the Scouting program has become a multigenerational legacy. Her mother was a troop leader and later a council board member. Shirley Coombs joined as a little girl, and when she grew up and married Richard Mosher, their daughters joined the program.

Mosher remembers earning badges during World War II by learning first aid and collecting aluminum foil and cooking fat to help with the war effort.

Mosher helped organize the council’s historical collection at Starwoods Outdoor Center near Clearwater. In addition, she and her husband donated the wooden bridge in front of the Girl Scouts of Kansas Heartland headquarters at 360 Lexington Road.

She said she is working on raising money for a brick pathway to the bridge.

“I like being with people and organizing things,” Mosher said.

This story was originally published May 18, 2014 at 12:28 PM with the headline "Good Deeds: Longtime Girl Scout sees program’s benefits to girls."