Student Feature Friday - Nipmuc Students Earn Eagle Scout Award

On Saturday, December 5th, Nipmuc seniors Zachary Schofield and Matthew O'Brien were among four Scouts honored at Troop 1 Mendon Eagle Court of Honor. The rank of Eagle Scout is the highest honor granted by the organization. Nipmuc is thrilled to have two young men who have used their experience with the scouts to develop their skills as leaders to give back to the community.

In this week's feature, I'm happy to be able to share my conversation with our newest Eagle Scouts.

Matthew O’Brien
Q. How did you first become involved in Scouts?
A. I, along with my twin brother and fellow Eagle Scout Jon, first became involved in scouting through our dad. He, (also an Eagle Scout from Troop 689, Seaford, NY) worked for 38 years in the Boy Scouts of America Supply Division as the Territory Manager of the New England Region, operating all of the Boy Scout's retail operations in the Northeast. Through my father's job, I was exposed to the Boys Scouts at a young age, working behind a counter at scouting events as young as kindergarten. By the time I was old enough to actually join Cub Scouts I was rearing and ready to go, with my eyes affixed on one goal: attaining Eagle Scout as my father had done before me.
Q. What was your project to become an Eagle Scout?
A. My Eagle Scout project was to remove the old, rotted guardrails at the Mendon Town Beach parking lot and replace them with new ones, fashioned from telephone poles. I enlisted the help of fellow scouts, friends, and family members over the course of 104 total hours of work.

Q. What does it mean to you to be an Eagle Scout?
A. Being an Eagle Scout, one looks at the world and tackling challenges in a completely new light. Before I attained the rank, I said to myself, "I don't know if I can do it". Now I say to myself, "I can do it". Being that the journey to Eagle was a ten year process for me, I have realized that I can start things and see them through to the very end. The journey to Eagle is both long and tiresome, hence why only four percent of scouts attain the rank. Yet, when peering down from the top of Eagle Summit, the journey up does not look so daunting. Yes, being an Eagle Scout opens up doors in the line of careers, scholarships, and other opportunities, but I feel the most important aspect of being an Eagle Scout is the amount of self-worth it gives an individual. Knowing that you belong to a fraternity of the likes of President Gerald R. Ford, Robert McNamara, Neil Armstrong, and Steven Spielberg certainly places a great amount of pride on a young mind.

Zachary Schofield
Q. How did you first become involved in Scouts?
A. I first became involved in scouting by my personal interest, but also most importantly because of my mother. She first introduced the program to me which I loved, being with friends and having a good time while doing outdoor activities was extremely fun, and that was only Cub Scouts! When getting into Boy Scouts a lot of our fellow scouts dropped out of the program and we were left with only a fraction of the people who started with us, but we persevered through this change and were inducted into Boy Scouts.

Q. What was your project to become an Eagle Scout?
A. My Eagle project was to construct and install settings for Outdoor Stations of the Cross for the St. Gabriel's Parish in Upton. This project actually took about a year and a half to complete in full. The plaques for the stations were funded by Father Mahoney (at a cost of $10,000), who proposed the project to me because the project is dedicated to his family. We had to research all different types of settings to build for the plaques. Eventually I worked with the grounds committee to come up with the design you see there today. The first setting took 8 hours to build and to figure out the measurements, then the other 13 settings took 8 hours total because we already had the measurements and the angles. Installing the settings took a total of approximately three hours to install all 14 stations. There were also other processes and service hours in between but these were the major ones. In order to fundraise for these stations, we asked for donations from the parish community and as a gift for donating, they received a dedication on the station they donated, "This station donated..." was the wording on the plaques, and the rest was chosen by the donors.

Q. What does it mean to you to be an Eagle Scout?
A. That's really a loaded question! The biggest part of my answer is that it's an extreme honor. To be involved and counted among the highest ranking members of the scouting program and in a few cases the world (for example Neil Armstrong) is absolutely unreal. To even think a person like me could be identified as an Eagle Scout among some of the world's greatest leaders and pioneers, I can't even describe how it feels. I'm incredibly proud of my achievement and at the same time incredibly humbled to be counted with all these great people at the rank of Eagle Scout. And forever we will be a part of a family that is millions strong in the world today, with connections all around the world with people we don't even know yet. The Eagle rank, and the involvement in scouting, binds us all as family, all the way down to the scout who just crossed over and is dreaming of attaining Eagle. What it means to be an Eagle Scout to me, is being bound together with millions of other people with a mutual love of togetherness, achievement, duty to God, duty to Country, and the upholding of the Scout Law and Oath. We will forever be a part of an undying family that is millions strong, and worldwide, making a difference by living the Scout oath and being trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.