A few topics pop up over and over for reporters covering the suburbs: zoning squabbles, school board conflicts and property taxes.

These bottomless fountains of contention could make reading the daily newspaper a depressing slog, if we weren't trying so hard here in Post-Gazette World to bring you word of the uplifting, the inspiring and the good. We turn out a steady stream of articles on students' academic achievements, sports triumphs and musical productions -- as well as news of projects that various charitable souls have undertaken to make their community or yours a better place to live.

I was going back over some of these stories the other day when it struck me that a great many of the charitable projects had a single thing in common: Eagle Scouts.

It could be a kind of "duh" moment: Community service? Building stuff outdoors? That's just what Eagle Scouts do.

But when you consider the sheer scope of these kids' good works and the power inherent in their quietly accumulated number, attention must be paid.

More important, when you read what the Scouts' community partners have to say about them, it makes you stop and think about how good character is built. That's something that lasts even longer than the wood and wire of all their projects.

Last week's North edition carried a story on handicapped-accessible, raised garden beds designed for therapeutic use at The Woodlands Foundation, and it was right there in the photo caption -- "built as an Eagle Scout project" by Eric Sinclair, 17, of Bradford Woods and Troop 81.

Just three weeks earlier, an article on Patrick Eger's senior project at Thomas Jefferson High School -- arranging a Pirates game outing for eight nursing home residents -- mentioned that he'd also helped his older brother Christopher construct a gazebo at a Mt. Lebanon retirement home as -- you guessed it -- an Eagle Scout project.

An April 24 story reported that Troop 181 in Ross has nine -- count 'em -- nine Eagle Scouts as current members. In recent years, the troop's Eagle Scouts have, among many projects, erected a gazebo at an elementary school, worked as camp counselors, built benches, put in electrical outlets and poured concrete pads for nearby public parks.

Ross parks and recreation director Pete Geis said, "There is not enough time in the day for me to tell you all that Eagle Scouts have done for Ross parks."

And so it goes, in virtually every borough and township, week after week. What would community life be like without these people committed to giving so much?

I don't come from a Scouting family; all we did, besides school, was church and music. Lots and lots of church and music.

I begged my mom to let me try Brownies, the Girl Scouts' branch for young girls, when a friend at school was doing it, but that lasted barely a year. Keeping track of uniforms and badges and "flying up" ceremonies was too much for my preoccupied parents to handle.

But my husband's family squeezed Boy Scout obligations in with their church activities, fife-and-drum corps and endless outdoor pursuits. Although only his older brother made Eagle Scout, Andy's habit of always having a pocket knife handy -- of always being prepared -- prompted me a few years ago to start calling him "The Boy Scout." And I say it admiringly, not mockingly.

I was surprised to find out quite recently that some of my husband's colleagues call him the same thing. The Scouts just seem to turn out a certain kind of man with a capable, honorable, can-do spirit that stands out at any age.

That's because it starts at an early age. A mid-April article profiled a young Scout in Ross who hopes to collect 5,000 cans of food for the needy by the time he makes Eagle Scout. He's already gathered and distributed 2,421 cans, and he's only 12 years old.

Stories like these make me wish it weren't about 10 years too late to get my sons involved. And no, it doesn't bother me a bit that the Boy Scouts of America is a boys-only organization.

Women can participate as Scout leaders, and girls can join two different Boy Scout programs as well as their own Girl Scout branches, like my short-lived Brownie experience. I think society has come full circle from gender exclusion, to inclusion, to realizing that some gender-specific experiences can be very valuable to children's healthy development.

And the evidence of Scouting's value to society's overall health is all around us. The stories just keep on coming.

One Pittsburgh-area Eagle Scout has just raised $75,000 to build a home with Habitat for Humanity in Katrina-ravaged New Orleans. You'll see the details soon in these pages.