Mike Stoker received the 2009 Citizen of the Year award Thursday night from the Boy Scouts of America, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties Chapter.
In accepting the award, Stoker, an Eagle Scout, said: “The values and principles taught to me as a Scout are the same values and principles that made America so great. The Scouts have never changed those values. Unfortunately, our country has strayed from these ideals and the results have not been positive. Perhaps it is time to quit trying to reinvent ourselves with new values that we are told are ‘politically correct’ and return to what made us so great to begin with … individual freedom and individual responsibility, self-worth and self-respect, rewards for good behavior and consequences for bad, and being accountable for your actions.
“The Scouts get it and always have. Hopefully, for the sake of our country, America will get it again.”