By Lisa Nicklanovich; courtesy photos

Four Castle Pines young men have earned the rank of Eagle Scout, boy scouting’s highest rank. Carter Burns (14) and Wyatt Burns (14), freshmen at Rock Canyon High School, received their Eagle Scout medal at a special court of honor ceremony September 8. Lance Christensen (14) and Matthew Hardin (14), eighth graders at Rocky Heights Middle School (RHMS), received their Eagle Scout medal at a special court of honor ceremony September 29.

The rank of Eagle Scout focuses on active participation, community service, leadership and merit badges. Each of the seven ranks in scouting takes several months, or even a year or more to complete. According to the Eagle Scout handbook, one of the primary purposes of the Eagle Scout service project is to demonstrate, hone, learn and develop leadership skills. Related to this are important lessons in project management and taking responsibility for a significant accomplishment.

Matthew Hardin conducted Stop the Bleed training at Rocky Heights Middle School and made 10 Stop the Bleed kits for his Eagle Scout community service project.

Carter and Wyatt Burns with two of their scout leaders, Travis McNeil, and Russell Sampson. Carter and Wyatt chose to clean up and improve the outdoor daycare area at the Colorado Muslim Community Center in Aurora as their Eagle Scout community service project.

Lance Christensen coordinated painting the fire line and staining fences at Timber Trail Elementary School, which he attended, for his Eagle Scout community service project.

Carter and Wyatt Burns chose to clean up and improve the outside daycare area of the Colorado Muslim Community Center (CMCC) in Aurora. Carter focused on cleaning up the tennis and basketball areas and hanging new basketball hoops. Wyatt focused on a wall that required sanding and painting plus replacing four windows frames that had deteriorated and were allowing water leaks into a daycare area.

Carter stated that he demonstrated leadership by, “ensuring everyone had a job to do and recruiting volunteers to help with other jobs like setting up the basketball hoops and taking down the wooden wall.”

Wyatt stated that what was most rewarding about being the leader was that, “It was always fun feeling like this was my project and I was the one who organized it.” The hardest part though was “having to always tell people what to do because it was hard to be stern with some of my friends.”

Matthew Hardin conducted Stop the Bleed training for 85 RHMS staff and teachers and made 10 Stop the Bleed kits to distribute throughout the school. Stop the Bleed training is critically important to helping first on the scene responders effectively deal with traumatic and life-threatening injuries.

Matthew stated that he felt earning Eagle was the culmination of all his hard work and being an Eagle encompasses everything he will do in the future, like helping others and always being prepared for any situation he is put in.

Lance looked to his former elementary school, Timber Trail, for a chance to make a difference. Lance described the extensive process involved in making his service project of painting the fire line and staining fences happen: “There were a lot of requirements. You had to get the project idea approved, then the project plan approved. After that, you had to buy all the materials and actually do the project. Then you had to do a ton of paperwork and finally do the board of review which is basically a group of five people asking you questions about how your project went.”

Congratulations to all four Eagle Scouts!