A.R. Hamilton, 82; posed for Norman Rockwell painting

AZTEC, N.M. - A man who modeled for one of artist Norman Rockwell's iconic Boy Scout paintings during World War II has died.

Arthur Robert Hamilton died July 28 in Aztec at age 82.

His daughter, Alison H.H. King of Chandler, Ariz., said he was "very much defined by being a Boy Scout."

Mr. Hamilton became an Eagle Scout at age 15, and scouting became his career. After serving in the US Navy and graduating with an accounting degree from the University of Maryland, he worked for the Boy Scouts of America as a fund-raiser until he retired in 1989.

Mr. Hamilton is shown as a solemn-faced teenager giving the Boy Scout salute in Rockwell's 1944 painting, "We, Too, Have a Job To Do," which urged collecting cans and rubber, volunteering, and raising victory gardens during World War II.

Linda Pero, curator of the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, confirmed that Mr. Hamilton was the painting's model. He filled out a museum questionnaire about it, she said.