Mar 13, 2011

Eagle Court of Honor 8/13/1971

I enjoyed scouting as a young man, at least the activities of scouting but not necessarily the merit badges of scouting. I did them however and was almost ready to receive my Eagle rank at age 14 like my older brother Lynn had done.  However there were two merit badges that stood in my way and I just couldn’t get past them. I did my eagle project and everything else required for the rank and still just couldn’t get past those two badges. I then stopped earning badge s as I went into the teachers quorum at church and later into the priest quorums where scouting wasn’t a major part of the activities. I still had everything to be an Eagle Scout except the leadership or personal motivation to get those two badges. Now you might be thinking  what were  those badges and why were they so tough. They were swimming and lifesaving and I was not a deep end of the pool swimmer since I swam so well as a rock rather than a person. Then Sister Caldwell moved to town and had been a professional lifeguard for years and upon discovering my plight with water took me on as a special project the day after I graduated for high school. We went swimming during the day and evenings as I had a graveyard shift at the Texaco for the summer and had time tat I could learn to swim. I finally passed off those two merit badges and four days before my 18^th birthday passed my board of review for the eagle rank in scouting. I received it four days later on a Sunday afternoon at a District Eagle Court of Honor. We held that Courts of Honor at a district level back then and everyone from tabiona, Altamont and Bridgeland came to the court of honor. It was a great day and I was in my scout uniform still able to have parents who put enough importance on the program to buy me uniforms as I grew. Luckily I didn’t grown too much and only had to have new pants and shirts a couple of time between 12 years old and 18 and then they were pretty much hand me downs form the older brothers. I was the only Eagle presented that day and right after it was over and the pictures were taken for the local newspaper (in Roosevelt) I got into the pickup with Lynn and Leesa and headed off to college at Snow College in Ephraim, Utah. When we got there we quickly unloaded our things into our apartment with Sister Anderson and Lynn informed me that we had a dinner engagement and I didn’t have time to change from my uniform before we were to be there so I went in my uniform to the home of Brother and Sister Findlay. He, Brother Findlay, just happened to be the Director of Training for the local council the Utah National Parks Council from which I had received the Eagle rank. I think it was a setup but I have always been thankful for it since it set me on a trail of scouting that has helped me to help other young men who have been in much the same predicament that I was in during those years and I always tell them about Ray Hansen and Sister Caldwell.