Eagle Scout Project Revisited

Some of you may or may not know that I am a Eagle Scout. I enjoyed my time in the Scouting program. The days camping and hiking through the woods (or grass lands of Kansas), the week long canoe trip that some of my fellow scouts and I took up to the boundary waters in Minnesota, and the knowledge that I learned while in the Scouts I still us today. I feel that even though it was not the coolest thing for me to do during my middle school and high school days, I am glad that my parents insisted on me continuing my adventures in the scouting program.

Now being an Eagle Scout is a very highly honored achievement for any Boy Scout since it is the highest rank that one can achieve while in the organization before having to move on into the Adventure Scouting program. In fact, it is often something that people put on a resume due because it demonstrates to an employer that they can plan, organize and finish a large project as well as being a good leader. The project must for a non-profit group, and the scout must create a proposal on what they want to do, create a plan on how they will go about finishing the project, and getting any materials that are needed donated to the cause. So every scout who plans on getting the rank of Eagle Scout must come up with a project, and most end up being like building a shelf for a non-profit, or fixing up a trail or park for the city. Mine however, was slightly different, and at first was hard to convince the board as a valid project. Yes, there is a board of leaders that must approve all of the projects before one can begin.

I did not want to do a project that everyone else had done when it came time for me to start thinking about what I was going to do. At first, I had trouble finding a idea, but my father soon came to my rescue. He work had a recreation area outside of town that was own and operated by the employees of the company that he work at. They were in need of some help with the landscaping, to be exact. They needed a wind break for the property as well as clearing out some evergreen trees that had been growing wild in some areas that they were not really desired in. So I decide to make my project the transplanting of these wild evergreen trees and creating the needed wind break out of them. I won't bore you with the details of the project, but it turned out well. In fact, my mother just sent me some photos of the trees and how they look now some 9 years after I finished the project. The interesting thing to note is the fact that this is the only Eagle Scout project that still exists out of all of the ones done around this time.