Eagle Project

When I was twelve years old in 1942, I joined he Boy Scouts of America. It was an exciting program and I enjoyed the meetings, scout camps and jamborees. The ranks of Tenderfoot, Second Class and First Class Scout weren't too difficult to attain and I did so as the time lapse between each rank was attained. I had an ideal to look up to in the person of my older sister's husband. He was an Army Air Corp Officer but was also an avid scouter. He had earned all of the Merit Badges available at that time and wherever he and my sister went, he was involved in the scouting program. Earning Merit Badges for rank advancement is strictly a product of ambition and there were those who advanced in rank from Star Scout to Life and Eagle Scout as quickly as possible. I was sixteen (1947) by the time I had attained the rank of Life Scout. As all know, Merit Badges are not the only thing necessary to attain the rank of Eagle Scout. A Service Project is also necessary. You must plan and organize the project having other scouts help at your direction if necessary. The project I chose was to organize an Assistant Project with the U.S. Forest Service who was planning a reforestization project of Provo Peak located east of Provo behind the "Y" mountain. This required going with the rangers to the base of Provo Peak and then hiking up to the area where the planting would be performed. As I recall, there were six rangers and six of us scouts. We all had back packs filled with pine tree seedlings that we carried up the mountain in addition to shovels and our lunches. We had left Provo at six in the morning and by the time we reached the planting area it was about eight o'clock. I had planned that each scout would work with a ranger and by five o'clock in the afternoon, we had completed our task for the day. The twelve of us planted over five hundred trees. The project was accepted by the Great Salt Lake Council of the BSA and I received my Eagle Award in July of that year. I didn't check up as to the success of the reforestization project until 2007. I learned that the project had been a success in preventing erosion of that area that had been hit hard the previous winter wherein a lot of trees were lost due to the harsh winter conditions. During my scouting career, I didn't earn all the Merit Badges but enough to earn the Eagle Award with two Silver Leafs. I would be amiss if I didn't thank my Mom for the prodding she did to inspire me to accomplish my goal.