Observations©

By Donald S. Conkey

Date: July 29, 2010 - #1031 - Title: Eagles - Scouting’s All Stars (4252)

July has been a noteworthy month for sports fans, especially for baseball and soccer fans. Baseball fans were able to see the best of the baseball’s best when they gathered in Anaheim, California to participate in baseballs ‘All Star’ game July 13. World soccer fans saw Spain win the world soccer championship.

            To become an All Star in any sport requires talent and lot of personal effort and self discipline to become the best of the best in any given sport. But the first thing a new participant in any given sport, or life, must learn are the rules of that game. And as they participate they quickly learn that if they disobey the rules (the sport laws), firmly established and written rules, they can be tossed out of the game by referees hired to ‘enforce’ the laws and loose their chance to become an “All Star.”

            Each culture has its own ‘All Stars.” In scouting’s culture it is the Eagle Scout who rises to the top and obtains the highest rank a scout can achieve – the Eagle Badge and who is then inducted into scouting’s “All Star”’ Eagle Nest. And like the trail to the ‘All Star’ game the trail to scouting’s Eagle Nest is a long and arduous trail, one always beset with challenges that will test the endurance, determination, and knowledge of the rules, of each boy on that trail. The Eagle badge is an achievement for each boy who enters in on the Eagle trail – and helps each boy to make that all important transition from boyhood to manhood.

            My boyhood was filled with activities built around 4/H and the Future Farmers of America (FFA). But in 1965, when I had sons growing up, there were no 4/H or FFA programs in my area for them to join. But my church had a Boy Scout program but no scoutmaster. I volunteered and was the scoutmaster for five years. That experience 45 years ago changed my life for the better and I’m still actively encouraging boys to become a scouting “Eagle All Star.” We now have four scouting ‘All Star’ Eagles in the family.

            No longer able to walk the trails or set up a tent it is still refreshing, and an honor, to sit in on advancement interviews. It is truly a miracle to watch a young boy set goals and then, often years later, reach that summit of an Eagle Scout. No boy makes it alone. He needs help and encouragement from his parents and from true friends of scouting. Since being involved in Troop 637 three true friends of scouting have stayed the course and helped countless local boys. Those true friends of Troop 637’s latest “All Stars,” Hans Schulzke, son of Kurt and Corinne Schulzke, Woodstock, and Phillip Henderson, son of Alan and Linda Henderson, Acworth, have been John Mitchell, Alan Henderson, and Bishop Phil Karski.   

            My minimal role in Han’s reaching the scouting summit of ‘All Stars’ was encouragement and, as he said during his Eagle Court of Honor, my cane pushing him onward and upward. Hans is now a student at Brigham Young University hoping to follow in his father’s footsteps as a lawyer. He is also preparing to leave in January to serve a two year service mission for his church and his God.

            Philip Henderson is Troop 637’s newest ‘Eagle All Star.’ Philip’s Eagle Court of Honor was held July 10 with a chapel full of family and friends. Impressively, there were nineteen Eagle Scouts in the Eagle Nest Philip was inducted into after being ‘pinned’ by his mother. A highlight of Philip’s Eagle ceremony was the video he prepared of the memorable events of his eight year Eagle journey. Philip’s video, titled “From Boy to Warrior,” was an impressive journey showing the transformation of a small cub scout into a tall handsome young Eagle with skills seldom seen in a young man his age. Philip too is preparing to serve a two year service mission for his church and God where he, like Hans, will learn new people skills that will serve him well in later years as a father, business leader, and church leader. Learning never ends.

            Another program, the Duty to God program, is designed by each church scout sponsor to teach the scouts under its sponsorship greater reverence for the scout law and scout oath. The Duty to God program enhances what a scout learned on his Eagle trail about what Jefferson called “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” Hans and Philip’s Duty to God curriculum covers four years and was designed to provide them with a “firm understanding of the doctrines of their God’s gospel” to help them better prepare for their missionary service, their temple service, and for fatherhood. Their church leaders, in introducing the Duty to God program, stated the Duty to God program enhances their scouting program by “helping a young man prayerfully outline his own personal, lifelong journey to learn what God would have him become and do.” A powerful encouragement needed by all boys making that critical transformation from boyhood to manhood.

            Scouting helps boys become men and to become the “All Stars” in their future communities. Want to feel needed? Help a boy along his Eagle trail until he becomes a scouting “All Star” – an Eagle Scout.