By Ken Jackson
Editor & Eagle Scout
Osceola County Manager Don Fisher was the honoree of the Golden Eagle Award Tuesday at the annual banquet held by the Central Florida Council of the Boy Scouts of America.
The hundreds of community leaders and members of the business community who attended the Golden Eagle Banquet combined to raise $93,720 for the BSA.
In nominating Fisher for the annual award, the Boy Scouts noting him for, “Applying Scouting principles to his every day life,” and honored him for the leadership he brings to Osceola County, which align with the mission and purpose of the Scouting program.
“This is humbling, I’m touched to be considered for this,” said Fisher, who has been with the county since 2007 and the county manager since 2010 -- the longest-tenured in the county's history -- in leading off his acceptance speech. “I’m blessed to be County Manager because it’s my opportunity to serve the community. To serve along with great people is a remarkable thing.”
“Leadership is about leading,” said former Osceola County Sheriff Bob Hansell, who served as event emcee.
Fisher, who noted being the third-best member of his immediate family after his wife April and 14-year-old daughter Chloe, noted being trustworthy as part of his leadership philosophy — “Trustworthy” is the first of the 12 points of the Scout Law.
“When you’re a leader, you’re in the spotlight, and often subject to criticism, especially in social media. It’s really a disservice to our community, and throughout the country. We’re so divisive right now. Ignore the critics, be a doer, and accomplish great things.”
Fisher referenced Theodore Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena” speech from 1910 given in Paris:
“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood … Because there is no effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement. And who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
