A girl joining the Boy Scouts has sparked a bro scout rivalry in her Texas family.
Ten-year-old Ana Garcia had been tagging along to her brother's Club Scout meetings for years, and participated with the same enthusiasm as the boys – despite not getting the awards and pins the boys got for all the activities, CNN reported.
All that is changing as the Boy Scouts of America organization goes genderless and prepares to welcome girls into the organization for the first time in 108 years this summer.
At least 3,000 girls have already signed up for the Cub Scouts via its Early Adopter program allowing them to join before the 2018 open enrolment.
Ana Garcia is among those girls.
Her first meeting as an official Cub Scout took place in February and now she is poised to earn her next rank at the end of May and graduate Cub Scouts.
At that rate, she is completing her rank faster than her 12-year-old brother, Sebastian Garcia, who graduated to the older youth program after Cub Scouts last year, and that has sparked some healthy sibling rivalry.
"He knows she's coming up right behind him, so he's like, 'I have to step up my game,'" their mother Celina Matabuena de Garcia, told CNN.
It was this kind of all-inclusive fun that the Boy Scouts of America had in mind when it decided to open its doors to girls.
"Cub Scouts is a lot of fun, and now it's available to all kids," said Stephen Medlicott, national marketing group director of Boy Scouts of America.
He said the campaign now "speaks to girls and boys and tells them, 'This is for you. We want you to join!'"
In Oakland, eight-year-old Abigail Wood is also working her way up the ranks, having recently joined the Cub Scouts.
“I am attracted to nature,” she said of her enrollment, according to the Central Maine.
“Since it was announced that girls could join, I thought I could get closer to nature in the scouts," she enthused.
Boy Scouts will remain the name for younger scouts like Sebastian Garcia, for now, and Cub Scouts will stay the name for the youngest scouts like Ana Garcia, but the name of the older youth program (where Eagle Scouts roost and merit badges accrue) will change to "Scouts BSA" next year.
The name change follows various other changes implemented within the organization.
The group recently announced that transgender youth would be accepted and registered within its ranks, and in 2015 it lifted its ban on gay leaders, USA Today reported.