Sunbury’s Rease will receive Eagle Scout recognition on Sunday

Nicholas Rease, 14, Sun­bury, is to receive his Eagle Scout Award in a court of honor cer­e­mony to be held on Sun­day, Decem­ber 2, at Camp Lazarus in Delaware County. Nick will be pre­sented this award by Assis­tant Scout­mas­ter Steve Sims of Boy Scout Troop 387, Galena, of The Simon Ken­ton Council.

This pre­sen­ta­tion is an impor­tant event for the young Eagle can­di­date, as this is the cli­max in all his Scout­ing efforts, as even Nick him­self felt that “becom­ing an Eagle was an unob­tain­able dream”. As a mere 5 per­cent of all Boy Scouts do so, rep­re­sent­ing more than 2 mil­lion Boy Scouts who have earned the rank since 1912, accord­ing to The National Eagle Scout Asso­ci­a­tion. Nev­er­the­less, the goals of Scout­ing — cit­i­zen­ship train­ing, char­ac­ter devel­op­ment and per­sonal fit­ness — remain impor­tant for all Scouts, whether or not they attain the Eagle Scout rank.

As an Eagle Scout, Nick is expected to live hon­or­ably, not only because honor is impor­tant to him, but because of the vital sig­nif­i­cance of the exam­ple he sets for other scouts. As a scout, Nick always felt this need “to be a good exam­ple for oth­ers”, it is in his character.

Nick began his jour­ney as a Tiger Cub at age 5, he con­tin­ued with Troop 247 advanc­ing through Wolf, Bear and Webe­los ranks. By 2007, Nick had earned the pres­ti­gious “God and Me” Emblem, and in less than two short years later, he fur­ther received hon­ors with “the Arrow of Light” before bridg­ing into Boy Scout Troop 844.

On the road to Eagle Scout, Nick joined Galena Char­ter Troop 387, with Scout­mas­ter David Bless­ing, where he would con­tinue and com­plete nearly 40 Boy Scout merit badges. He has held lead­er­ship posi­tions as Patrol Leader and Den Chief for Webe­los Pack 247.

To earn the Eagle Scout rank, a Boy Scout must ful­fill require­ments in the areas of lead­er­ship and com­mu­nity ser­vice. For Nick’s Eagle Scout required project, he chose to help the Humane Soci­ety of Delaware County. Lead­ing a crew of vol­un­teers they built five dog houses and two cat con­dos, pro­vid­ing shel­ter to at-risk dogs and cats in Delaware County.

After months of plan­ning, this chal­leng­ing project took 240-man hours to com­plete. But just three days before his final work day on his project, Nick and his fam­ily lost their beloved dog Baily to can­cer and age. This loss com­pelled Nick to ded­i­cate his Eagle project to her mem­ory. In addi­tion to this emo­tional set­back, on his last work day, a big storm delayed plans for final deliv­ery. Yet, after a period of power out­ages and high winds, and a reduced work team, they still man­aged to fin­ish the project only one hour behind sched­ule. Nick val­ues the chal­lenges of his project, as he feels “it has made him bet­ter pre­pared to be a leader”.

With one step at a time, Nicholas Rease has fol­lowed a trail blazed by oth­ers and has now blazed his own trail for oth­ers to fol­low. Keep­ing an eye on the goal, he has reached the top. There will be many moun­tains wait­ing to be climbed, some may seem insur­mount­able, but they can all be con­quered. Nick feels “he can lead by exam­ple, if he con­tin­ues to set his goals high and sim­ply take the first step, while con­tin­u­ing to help oth­ers along the way.”

On a final note, Nick would like to thank the loy­alty of his brother scouts from Troop 387, his fam­ily and the friends who helped him to accom­plish these scout goals. Addi­tion­ally, thank­ing the local busi­nesses which helped make his project pos­si­ble with dona­tions, includ­ing, Carter Lum­ber, Ace Hard­ware, J&J Car­pet, Jake Ball Con­struc­tion, Sher­win Williams, Papa John’s Pizza, the R.B. Pow­ers Co. and Leroy’s Auto Service.

Posted by Gary Henery on Nov 28 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.