Logan Piercy of University City has advanced to the highest rank in scouting, the Eagle Scout”an honor earned by only 4 percent of scouts. The Eagle rank requires demonstrated leadership and knowledge, as well as the completion of a significant community service project.
Seventeen-year-old Piercy is a member of Boy Scout Venture Crew 11 and attends University City High School. He describes this honor as the “summation of all that scouting means.”
“It’s the focal point of scouting ” the focal and ultimate end of scouting,” he said.
Piercy has been a Boy Scout since the fifth grade. When asked why he decided to work toward the Eagle ranking, he said, “All the people that we look up to in this group are Eagle Scouts.”
For his project, Piercy led his troop in developing a wilderness trail at the Palomar Christian Conference Center, so that visitors can enjoy the high mountain woods and streams only an hour’s drive away.
Piercy’s project was two-fold: to build a bridge and reconstruct a trail. He chose the nonprofit conference center to “give back” to the church that has loaned the scouts its facilities over the years. On two separate days, on two different weeks, Piercy led a team of his fellow scouts to mend a bridge that was in poor shape, as well as decrease the steepness of a trail so that it wasn’t so sharp and could be more accessible. The Piercy team relied on predominantly all natural materials, including logs and rocks, while their tools consisted of shovels, rakes and sledge hammers.
“Scouting prepares you for pretty much everything that school doesn’t,” he said.
School has provided Piercy with academics; however, scouting has helped him learn to “get things done around the house, budget time and money, the importance of eating right and exercising, as well as preparing for weekend trips outdoors,” he said.
Recently, Piercy put his scouting skills to practice as he assisted a mother and daughter who were involved in a car crash in the canyon outside his high school during the rains last month.
While walking home from school, he witnessed the mother, who had just picked up her daughter from school, skid on the wet ground and overcompensate, going over the side. The vehicle tumbled down about 15 to 20 feet, he recalled. Piercy ran down the embankment, about 100 feet away. At this point, the vehicle was sitting in a stream of running sewer water and water was coming up to the car window. The daughter was able to escape, but the mom couldn’t open her door, as a rock was blocking it or the water pressure was prohibiting her from opening the door, Piercy speculated. With the help of a lifeguard, who also came to assist, they aided the two to safely.
Piercy’s reaction was instinctive, he recalled. When asked if scouting helped prepare him for situations such as these, he said that he knew how to jump onto a log so he didn’t break his ankle.
Piercy plans to study anthropology in college. He’s applied to a number of University of California schools, as well as a few other schools, he adds, but has not committed to where he’ll be going.
The Boy Scouts of America is the nation’s foremost youth program of character development and values-based leadership training.
For more information on The Boy Scouts of America, log onto www.scouting.org.