Tanner's Eagle Project Takes Flight

I don't have any brothers and I don't remember my parents ever serving in scouts callings.  I do remember once or twice being invited to a cousin's Eagle court of honor.  However, I never imagined how much WORK and DEDICATION is involved in obtaining the rank of Eagle until I went through the program with Tanner.  These boys have to advance through their ranks: Scout, Tenderfoot, Second Class, First class, Star, and Life.  They have to camp for at least 20 nights, give 6 hours of service unrelated to their Eagle project and separate from their Citizenship in the Community 20 hour service project.  The boys spend HOURS completing reports, science observations, experiments, first aid training, swimming, cooking, writing letters to their congressmen and then meeting with merit badge councilors for more HOURS to pass them off.  There are 21 merit badges required for the rank of Eagle and many of them take almost as long as the Eagle project itself to earn.

Now that the LDS church is pulling away from the Scouting program by the end of the year, we decided it was the kick in the pants that Tanner needed to finish up all of his loose ends and get that Eagle.  The Cub Scout Master in our ward had mentioned to me that she wanted all of the Cub Scouts to have an opportunity to make Bat Boxes for the Fish and Game.  Tanner had been trying hard to come up with a project that would benefit the Fish and Game, since he has such a love for the outdoors and it sounded like such a big project, that I had him contact her to see if he could jump in and help.  He had to meet with Fish and Game and the Boy Scout Committee members to get his project approved.  Once it was approved, we counted over 140 man hours (not all of them were Tanner's, the Scouts counts hours for individuals who help on the project as well.)  And here is what we came up with.

Tanner built a sample bat box and bat box kit with his dad, then asked Bronson to come and be the guinea pig to see if he could put it together.

The pieces were cut, labeled and traced so that the Cub Scouts could easily see where to put the pieces and nail them in.

Tanner invited all of the Young Men 12+ to our house to assemble the kits, and pre-drill some holes so that the Cubs could nail the boxes together more easily.

Tanner and Zac purchased a small set of tools that the Cubs could use to build the bat boxes and take home with them.

Our garage was clean and organized and workstations were built.

The finished kits for the Cub Scouts:

Then it was time for the Pack Meeting and time for the Cubs to come and build the bat boxes.  The weather was perfect:

Tanner added a nail pounding station and a coloring station for little brothers and sisters to work on while their Cub Scout brothers built the boxes.

A paint station was set up so that the Cubs could finish painting the boxes when they were done building.

Tanner did an awesome job conducting the meeting.

And the scouts had a really great time building their boxes!

Zac and I were almost moved to tears by the end of the night with how well Tanner conducted the meeting and how smoothly the project ran.  Even though Eagles are tough to get and I have complained and grumbled along the way about all of the work involved.  I can see how every little piece of paperwork, class time, and leadership opportunities has added to shape Tanner and move him towards leadership as he continues to mature.  He has been pushed and stretched to his limits and he has grown so much.  Now, to finish up the paperwork and meet with the proper entities to tie this baby up and then we will ALL celebrate mightily at a Court of Honor.