Six Earn Eagle Scout Honor

Bringing to a culmination years of preparation and dedication, the Watchung Mountain District’s Boy Scout Troop 56 christened six new Eagle Scouts on Friday night in Millington.

The Long Hill Senior Center was packed with friends, family and mentors who had been part of the Scouting lives of six young men who achieved Scouting’s highest honor.

By most measures, achieving the rank of Eagle is rare — only 4 percent of Scouts ever make it to the coveted rank. The difference for those who do is an act of perseverance at a time when young men reach adulthood and life gets rather busy with academics and high school life.

“It was a long tough road but it’s only tough if you wait until the last minute,” said new Eagle Ryan Lavorerio. “You can definitely achieve it if you plan everything out the way it needs to be planned. If you take everything that an Eagle Scout is supposed to be, you can actually get a lot done.”

Eagle Scouts must complete at least 21 merit badges, or task-specific earned certifications, and a fairly elaborate community-related Eagle project in order to achieve the rank. Most take about two years to complete their Eagle project because of the planning  and level of community involvement.

New Eagle Steven Lukaszek, who was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor in May 2009, elected to give back to the center that helped him become cancer-free over nearly two years of therapy.  He led a project to renovate an occupational therapy room at the Children’s Specialized Hospital in Springfield. 

“I want to thank the doctors who supported my recovery and my project,” Lukaszek said.

On Friday, Lukaszek joined his fellow Eagle Scouts in an elaborate two-hour ceremony filled with protocol that included details on what it took to achieve Eagle, presentations of the Eagle badge and neckerchief, recitation of the Eagle Scout Oath, acceptance speeches and words from town dignitaries.

New Eagle Daniel Carlin worked on erosion control at the Somerset County Environmental Education Center for his Eagle project. Specifically, his project was to stabilize and re-form a pond bank with bio-degradegable logs that would eventually protect trails and the ecosystem in the area.

“ I am proud of my accomplishments and glad that I was able to experience this program because I really learned a lot from it,” Carlin said. “It’s really a lot of hands-on and useful skills, like how to survive in the wilderness —things like that I think society needs more of in the age of technology when we might not experience those things.”

Long Hill Township Mayor Nanette Harrington offered her encouragement for all of the new Eagles and their projects.

“Gentlemen, you have reached a significant accomplishment in your lives,” Harrington said. “But this isn’t the end, this is just the beginning of what you can accomplish as you go through life.”

Indeed those words take on special honor for these six new Eagles — Daniel Carlin, Joseph Hands, Lavorerio, Lukaszek, Patrick McGrath and Christopher Mederos — as most of them have known each other since about age eight, when they all entered Cub Scouts.

At the end of ceremonies, Scoutmaster Gary Stapperfenne held up a banner that the boys had made as Cub Scouts with an eagle posted to its center,  in what now seems like a prophetic move on their part.

“This is such as tight group of boys that they supported one another,” said Laura Lukaszek, Steven’s mother. “When one kid said that they would do something, all of them rallied around that one and they all did it, which is why it’s such a huge group (of Eagles).”

Apparently the boys have also been leading by example, as the trop has surged in membership over the past two years.

“We have about 80 kids in the troop and are holding steady,” Stapperfenne said. “We had a tremendous swell over the past four years due to the program — we do a lot of stuff. Scouting is always about the program."