Avon Scout Trio Earns Highest Honor

Avon Scout Troop 274

AVON, CT — Three local scouts recently achieved scouting's highest ranking, doing so with a significant benefit to the community as well.

Avon Troop 274 awarded Scouts Jack Pavlakis, Daniel Hamilton and Conor Mussa the rank of Eagle at a recent Eagle Court of Honor at the West Avon Congregational Church.

All three Scouts are Avon High School graduates and began scouting as Tiger Cub Scouts in Avon Cub Scout packs.

The Eagle rank is Scouting’s highest rank and earned by less than 4 percent of scouts, according to troop leaders.

To earn Eagle rank, scouts must complete a set of skills, leadership and service objectives for each of six ranks, earn at least 21 merit badges and plan, lead and complete a community service project before age 18.

• The Avon Senior Center was the beneficiary of Pavlakis’s Eagle project.

He held a playing card and board game drive to collect new and like-new games and cards for use by Avon Senior Center patrons, created and planted a perennial garden bed and built a wheelchair-accessible outdoor table and two benches.

Pavlakis is now a freshman at the University of Connecticut.

• Hamilton’s Eagle project included a luncheon honoring Avon High School teachers for their efforts supporting students during the Covid pandemic.

He developed a database to collect "thank you" notes from students and parents and built a frame for a monitor in AHS’s Gallery of Arts to display the notes.

At the luncheon, teachers received bags of home-baked cookies, table centerpieces to take home as decorations and printouts of individual "thank you" notes.

Hamilton is now a freshman at Denison University in Granville, Ohio.

• Avon’s Alsop Meadows campsite received upgrades thanks to Mussa’s Eagle project.

For his project, he created seating and a place to eat by building two picnic tables and milling a 6-foot tree trunk to make bench seating around the fire pit.

He also enhanced the safety of the fire pit area and built a lockable “bear box” to store food and trash at the campsite.

Mussa is now a freshman at Tunxis Community College in Farmington.