Local Eagle Scouts Find Leadership in Service to Others

Brian Joseph was only 10-years-old when he began down the path to become an Eagle Scout.

During the past eight years, Joseph, now 18, worked his way up the Boy Scout ranks in Troop 642, earning countless merit badges and skills like knot-tying and wilderness survival along the way. Even as most other Boy Scouts his age quit, Joseph continued the journey because quitting just wasn’t an option, he said.

“In our troop we encourage everybody to get Eagle Scout, and I didn’t want to give up half way,” he said.

Service

Joseph is one of four Boy Scouts from Troop 642 that earned the title of Eagle Scout this month. The other recipients include Steven Castro, William Chenoweth and Joey Paulson. According to the Boy Scouts of America, only about five percent of Boy Scouts will reach Eagle Scout rank. To earn Eagle Scout rank, Boy Scouts must earn 21 merit badges in areas such as first-aid, camping, family-life and personal management. They also must serve six months in a troop leadership position, plan and execute a service project, take part in a Scoutmaster conference and successfully complete an Eagle Scout board review.

For his Eagle Scout project, Joseph built a DVD cabinet for the VA Hospital in Long Beach. The cabinet is six feet wide by six feet high and holds 1,500 DVDs. It is held in the Recreational Therapy Department.

As part of the project, Joseph planned the DVD cabinet’s construction from start to finish, found funding sources and worked with volunteers to help build it. The entire process took several months to complete, and, with donations from local organizations such as the Seal Beach Lions Club and other private donors, he collected the $600 he needed to fund the project.

Joseph said there were some snags in the construction process, but instead of discouraging him, he saw it as a life lesson.

“(The project) involves a lot of life lessons that teach you how to be a leader, work with other people, and think under pressure,” he said. “I learned how to keep going when things don’t go as planned.”

Leadership

Joseph wasn’t the only one who wanted to give back to veterans. For his Eagle Scout project, Castro also decided to work with the Long Beach VA Hospital. For his project, Castro built a credenza-style cabinet that holds bingo equipment and games that are used as therapy for veterans.

“I decided to do this project because the veterans have given so much effort preserving the freedom of our country and I knew that it would be best to give back to their efforts,” Castro said.

For Castro, the decision to stay in Boy Scouts was not only because he enjoyed it, he said, but also because he understood the value of the life lessons he learned along the way. One his most memorable scouting moments, he said, was when he accomplished an 80-mile, two-week backpacking trip where he climbed 13,000 feet. Through that experience, he said, he built confidence.

“I learned that I can perform under tough conditions and could handle adverse situations, even with lightning strikes just yards away,” he said.

Now, Castro said he is giving himself the task of helping other boys in his troop achieve Eagle Scout.

For his project Chenoweth created an orienteering course at El Dorado Park in Long Beach, where scouts and others can practice their compass and distance-pacing skills. He received donations for the project from Ganahl Lumber and Amecis Pizza.

For his Eagle Scout project, Paulson built storage shelves for the athletic trainer at Los Alamitos High School. He said he decided to do the project because the school’s trainer, John Hansen, helped him with a shoulder injury, and he wanted to give back. Reaching Eagle Scout rank, he said, was his goal since he joined Boy Scouts in the first grade.

Reaching that goal has been is a major milestone.

“Reaching Eagle Scout means that I am ready to take on anything that steps in my path. Being an Eagle Scout means that I am a leader who has been tested and proven capable of getting the task accomplished,” he said. “Being an Eagle Scout means that it is my duty to do what is right and to serve as an example to others.”