This is the shirt I received for working my last drama show with the high school. I had spent nearly the entirety of my time at BHS working on or backstage. Eight shows total, 3 musicals and 5 plays. Stage Manager for Senior Year. Crew and Cast member. I did just about everything at least once.

Drama Club in general was a place I could relax and ignore life’s worries for a while. I could just cut loose and engage with others who see me for me. During Middle school, I loved choir. It was my go-to extracurricular. But scheduling conflicts led me to be unable to take it in high school, so I decided to try out for backstage with drama, and I never looked back after.

Senior year I was given the opportunity to work closely with the director as the backstage manager. I had never had a role with that much responsibility. Not only was I to direct crew during rehearsal and productions, I also helped to lead with set design, construction, and prop design. Having a team that I knew I could trust to get the job done was pivotal in getting the shows up and running. We managed to get a group of greenhorns and senior crew together to make this happen. The greenhorns could learn and pass on the torch to the next set of student once we had left, while the senior members gave guidance and helped to control the chaos.

This was also the show tat came closest to tragedy. We were using scaffolding towers within the production, and during the final dress rehearsal, literally less than twenty-four hours before opening, one of the towers came down on stage while we were practicing. Luckily no one was hurt, but the tower tore a hole in the curtain and scared the hell out of everyone, especially the director. Since no one else knew what to do, I cleared stage and sealed it off until we made sure nothing else was going to happen. Once were were secure in our continued safety, the show went on, gaffer-taped curtain and all. Honestly, I think this was one of the better shows we performed, no major issues during the run, nor drama between cast members backstage.

Overall, I feel like my time with drama has greatly helped me to break out of my shell. I could become someone else for a while, and just have fun, and in the end, isn’t that all that matters?

On May 10, 2016, I earned the rank of Eagle Scout.

I had been working in some way or form for the past 12 or so years, ever since I started Cub Scouts as a First Grader. I had only moved into  the town a month before, and had found few friends at this point.  Going to the meeting with my dad, I had no idea what to expect, and left thinking it was neat. I have since been able to better identify what I found there. Companionship, mental stimulation, and a sense of purpose. I was able to find a moral code that was previously absent from my life, a motto that became a way of life, and outlet to let me live my life.

Before moving to my hometown, I lived in an area with few kids my age outside of my little brother. I often ended up finding entertainment for myself through reading or PBS. While this may have increased my intellectual capability, my social skills could be described as lacking. Scouts pushed me to interact with other people on a level school never had before. We performed team building exercises, made connections, and did service for others. Each meeting was a new topic that would force us to think outside the box to complete a task. As you grew older, the challenges became more complex, leading to more critical thinking.

While Cub Scouts fostered thought and friendships, Boy Scouts was also the first to give me a set, long-term goal: Eagle Scout, the highest achievable rank of the entire program. Not everyone reaches this point. It requires years of dedication and hard work to acquire. During my time with the Boy Scouts, I regularly logged service hours, as that was a technical requirement for some ranks. All told, in the first 3 years, I had spent over 200 hours in some capacity of service projects.

One of the most difficult aspects of earning Eagle Scout is the leadership project. All applicants must plan, execute, and evaluate a service project for an organization outside of Scouts. My personal project was to coordinate with our charter organization, Community United Methodist Church, the purchasing and installation of a 25 ft flagpole at the church, an idea that had floated around the committees but could never be justified due to the time and cost, when resources could be better focused on the maintenance and improvement of the church itself. Over the course of about a year, I met with committees, acquired funding through donations from church, family, and friends, planned out the final design of the pole and subsequent landscaping for the area, purchasing the pole, organizing volunteers, and then installing said pole. All told, 65 hours of work went into this project from myself and volunteers who aided in the process.

Scouts have a few sets of well known words, two of which are the Scout Law, and the motto. The law is a set of 12 guiding principals a scout should embody. They are trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. Every scout aspires to live a life following these points. Even more influential to me is the scout motto, which is a simple two word phrase, Be Prepared. I have formulated much of my thought process around this idea of being ready for anything; mentally, physically, or spiritually. When the unexpected occurs, a scout should be able to maintain a cool head, make rational decisions, and act in a matter that betters the outcome of the event, even if only by a small margin.

I feel as if scouting has been a sort of outlet for my self to take advantage of. In school, I was always the model student; who knew everything, maintained perfect grades, and never got into trouble. Scouts allowed me to throw off the mask and be myself for a while. I could make mistakes, get angry, do stupid stuff that would never be appropriate for school, and be something other than the silent nerd. Scouts was the opportunity for me to just be a kid for a while, and I will never be thankful enough for that.

Since earning my eagle, I have continued to utilize the skills I learned to teach youth the ways of scouting, as well as how to be a good person in general, whether in scouts, school, or life.

On May 10, 2016, I achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, and started on my next journey into the future.