Being invited to be a guest at an Eagle Award ceremony is an honor, and seeing a young man you first met when he was in fourth grade achieve this highest honor in Boy Scouting is an even greater honor.
Edward Joseph Stuart IV…..Eddie to me, was named to the Eagle rank, the highest in Boy Scouting, after working more than 2,000 hours on identifying tools from the 19th century, researching their history, cataloguing them, framing them, and so much more, all for Monmouth County’s Oakley Farm Museum in Freehold Township. He did all this while maintaining his status in honor programs in the Global Studies magnet program at Freehold Township High School where he is a junior.
Samuel Fung, who I do not know but who is as hardworking, intelligent and talented as Eddie, also received his Eagle Award for his exterior work at the same museum creating a drainage ditch to protect foundations and a walkway to enhance the garden. And so much more.
Both young men deserve praise and thanks, which they received at the ceremony and from their local officials. Loved when Freehold Council president Sharon Schutzer explained how important it was to be there for the ceremony.
She recalled an earlier Eagle ceremony she had been invited to that coincided with a wedding where she was also invited. Sharon extended her regrets to her friend the groom, saying the Eagle ceremony took precedence. When he asked why, she calmly told him. ,” anybody can get married, but……… “She was right. Both these young men are now in the 4 per cent of scouts who ever achieve this honor. And she let them know that.
For Eddie to invite me goes back to when he was a little kid in a CCD class I taught at St. Rose of Lima in Freehold. He was always there with the right answer, always there to show me he had done homework I had given out, always well-behaved and attentive in class. For some reason, and unknown to me, he apparently liked my way of teaching and held me in remarkably high esteem. I didn’t see him or several years after I left Freehold, but he corresponded with me, telling me what he was doing, what achievement she had accomplished, simply, very nicely, keeping me up to date on all he was doing.
It wasn’t until he asked me to be his confirmation sponsor a couple of years ago that I realized I truly had had an impact on his life, and it was positive. I had made a difference in a young boy’s religious studies and apparently in his life for him to keep remembering me and honoring me by asking me to be his sponsor. It is a privilege I treasure.
So now to be invited to his Eagle ceremony is more icing on the cake!
It’s Eddie’s wonderful parents who have brought him up to be the tall, handsome, deep-voiced, intelligent and still hardworking young man that was simply a good kid in catechism classes. Eddie honored them as his Eagle ceremony, along with the special people whom he also admired, appreciated, and thanked for helping him in scouting.
His parents have every right to be so proud of Edward Joseph Stuart IV…..I just feel proud that I know him. And he’s promised to continue to keep me informed of all his accomplishments! I can’t wait to hear the next one
