'Dib dib dib': Billionaire Microsoft chief Bill Gates receives Boy Scout's highest honour, the Silver Buffalo award
By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 3:42 PM on 15th September 2010
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has received the highest award that the Boy Scouts of America bestows on adults for distinguished service to youth.
Scout officials said he deserved the Silver Buffalo award for his success with Microsoft, but more so for his humanitarian work through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
As a boy in the 1960s and 1970s, Mr Gates was a member of Seattle's Cub Scout Pack 144 and Boy Scout Troop 186 and achieved the rank of Life Scout.
Recognition: Bill Gates is presented with the Boy Scouts Silver Buffalo award for the humanitarian work he carries out through his foundation
Mr Gates, who shared a table at the award ceremony with his father William Gates Snr, said scouting was 'a very positive memory'.
He said: 'I wasn't good at hiking, I wasn't good at cooking the food, it was the overall experience of challenging yourself.'
In a recorded tribute, his former scoutmaster Don Van Wierengen recalled a show at the Seattle Center where most boys in the troop were demonstrating outdoor skills, but Mr Gates wanted to demonstrate computers.
Tributes: Mr Gates shakes hands with Boy Scouts during the award ceremony. The billionaire was a scout as a youth in Seattle
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which aims to eradicate malaria and other diseases among other goals, has joined with the Boy Scouts and the UN Foundation on a programme to provide insecticide-treated mosquito nets to protect sleeping people in Africa.
The Silver Buffalo award was created in 1925. Past winners include Charles Lindbergh, Normal Rockwell, Colin Powell, Walt Disney and 14 U.S. presidents.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1312223/Microsofts-Bill-Gates-receives-Silver-Buffalo-award-services-youth.html#ixzz0zcDbwbfL | 
發表於 2010-9-15 23:56
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