Bethel Girl Scout Awarded Highest Honor

BETHEL, CT — Way back in 4th Grade, Laurel Stejskal struggled with reading. But her teacher that year took the effort of pointing her in the direction of books she knew she would love, and nipped that disability in the bud.

Now a senior at Bethel High School, Stejskal is a reading advocate, and that passion fueled a project for which she was awarded the Girl Scouts' highest honor on Friday.

The Girl Scout earned her Gold Award for building and stocking two lending libraries in town.

The first, named the Liz Teed "Read" Library in honor of the Girl Scout's 4th grade teacher, is a replica of the historic Plumtrees Schoolhouse and is located on the front lawn of the Bethel Municipal Center.

The second is a replica of Stejskal's church, Bethel United Methodist, and is named "Betty's Books of Blessings" in honor of Betty Lepus, the church's oldest parishioner. It is located at the church.

The "Libraries for Literacy" project has taken two years to complete. Stejskal ran a book drive through Johnson and Rockwell School in which she collected over a thousand books to stock her libraries.

Stejskal, who just turned 18 in April, has been with Troop 50006 in Bethel since she began as a Daisy Scout in kindergarten. Now a senior at Bethel High School, she has her sights set on Naugatuck Valley for the fall where will study forensic science.