Eight and a half years of Scouting led to this moment. Taylor and Cody had their Eagle Court of Honor together on June 4th. It’s been over a year since both of them finished their Eagle Projects, so this day was a LONG time coming. Our local Order of the Arrow group does an elaborate Eagle Ceremony which is awesome! Chief Hulet comes with 4-5 others and presents the Eagle awards. It’s very authentic and motivates a lot of scouts who are getting close to the end to finish it out.
Pinning on the hardware… there was a lot of it!
We also had a guest presenter from the Sons of the Mormon Battallion group. If the scouts do a campout, hike and service project along the Mormon Battallion trail, a member of their organization will come to their Eagle Court of Honor and present them with a special award and skull neckerchief. It’s very cool, but dangerous to anyone to tries to give them a hug while wearing it. ;-) Our bishopric also ordered special Eagle trophies to give to the boys. I think it’s about time we got a trophy shelf mounted in Taylor’s room.
The boys then got to give out pins to their parents and a mentor. I LOVE the picture of Taylor giving Eric a hug. It’s a priceless moment.
After the Eagle dance, the boys were welcomed into the Eagle’s Nest.
Somehow I never got a picture of Taylor with Eric and I after the ceremony. But I did get a picture of Taylor and Cody with Taylor’s “mentor” and their former Scoutmaster, JB.
After experiencing the entire Scouting experience from Wolf to Eagle, there is no wonder only 3% of Scouts achieve the rank of Eagle. You think that the Eagle project is the hardest part, but it’s not. The Eagle Rank Application is the worst. No normal teenager boy could navigate through that red tape nightmare and figure it out on his own. At least I will have an example to reference when it’s Ian’s turn. And oh, yes, I know Ian will finish. He wants to drive even more than Taylor did. I won’t deny that we held back driving privileges until Taylor finished. He wouldn’t have finished otherwise. I don’t regret putting that condition on driving, and Taylor doesn’t regret it either. :)
1 comment:
Awesome! Eagle's are a big deal, my grandpa was a professional boy scout so there was extra emphasis on the eagle growing up. It was a requirement to drive, and for the girls-- the boy we married had to be an eagle, according to grandpa. I'll never forget the time I brought a boy who wasn't to meet grandpa, he blamed it on the family life merit badge and how hard it was-- I had forgot to warn him that grandpa wrote that merit badge!
Congratulations Taylor! Enjoy!
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