Eagle Scout Court of Honor

It happened! It was in serious doubt. When I sent out the first invitations, the Scoutmaster replied that we wouldn't get our regalia in time. We pushed on and decided we could borrow some items if we had to. Regalia is the neckerchief, the slide, and the pin awarded to eagle scouts.

Christopher passed his board of review on Monday July 17. 

We managed to get a ceremony planned in just under 3 weeks. That is a much shorter timeline than most ceremonies have.

We were under a lot of restraints for picking a date. C's best friend left for California and college on August 5th. His other close friends leave for Texas on August 12th. We really wanted his best friends to be able to be at the event.

First we tried to get the church where we meet for boy scouts. It wasn't available. It would have been a great venue and they don't charge a fee for scout events. We were able to secure the church building where our church meets for a minimal fee of 100 dollars. We considered holding it outside in the field behind the church, under a tent, but the rental fee for tents is very high. Slowly things came together. J worked on the ceremony and getting the roles filled. I worked on display boards, decorations, food, and drinks. A and I worked together on the slide show. 

There were a lot of roles to fill. Usually at an eagle court of honor, there is a scout representing each rank who lights a candle, seven in total. There was a troop white-water rafting trip that departed on the day of our ceremony. We managed to get 6 scouts and one lit two candles. 

My hubby likes to shake things up so he bought a mini blow torch to use to light the candles. 

I made six display boards. One for graduation (mainly photos from high school), one for cub scouts, one for boy scouts, for the eagle scout project, one for future plans, and one for Christopher's favourite photos. 

We had our programs printed at Fed Ex Office. We invited 125 people. Our final count was about 70. I did have a guest list I asked people to sign. I'm not sure if we missed some. It was a mix of Christopher's friends, our Scout troop, and friends of ours from church and other places.

I borrowed things from friends. A drink dispenser, two large coolers to store and serve cans of sparkling water. I had friends bring trays of cheese and crackers, fruit trays, and brownies. I also borrowed an additional crockpot. The fabric table cloths for the round tables belong to our church but are stored at my friend's house. 

There are several boxes of supplies for eagle ceremonies that is passed around our troop. It included a book that was very helpful for putting the ceremony together. 

I made the table centers. I bought wood slices several months ago that were used for a church lunch. I had some moss and trees. I made the tents using small popsicle sticks and leftover fabric. I also made the campfires using little rocks and sticks. 

I used a vintage suitcase case to collect cards. 

We asked our old friends Colette and Matt to be the greeters and let people know where the restrooms are.

I ordered cupcakes from Safeway. I found an idea online of forming an American flag with cupcakes. The first bakery I asked wanted over 200 dollars for 70 cupcakes. Safeway only charged a dollar a cupcake.

We had leftover cupcakes, by the way. I did meatballs in 2 crockpots. They were frozen, from Costco, and were put into the crockpots in the morning and warmed up during church and then were ready after the ceremony. The sauce is grape jelly and BBQ sauce. Those were gobbled up with no leftovers.

Here is the current Scoutmaster giving his talk.

Our special guest was Snohomish County Sheriff Adam Fortney. We went to a fundraiser for him a while back (he's running for re-election in November) and really liked him. J got in touch with his staff and asked if he would come to our ceremony. He happily accepted. He had to leave early to throw out the first pitch at a baseball game. I thanked him and his wife for coming (before the ceremony) and they said they really enjoy coming to these types of events and they are encouraging to him. 

Christopher's good friend Eli was the master of ceremonies. His dad was our photographer. We had two men from our church do sound and video. 

Eli is in the middle.

Nick and Mr Bachmeier did the scout law in Scripture.

Our troop has a tradition that after a mother's pin is awarded (when a scout advances), the scout hugs their mom.

The mentor pin was a surprise to me. I didn't know who Christopher would give it to. I thought perhaps it would be J. He chose to give it to his former Scoutmaster Mr. Keen.

One of the elders at our church is an Eagle Scout. We chose him to do the opening and closing prayers. 

We didn't want to have an open mike but we wanted people to speak about Christopher. His peer spoke first. He is also named Adam. Then it was Mr. Said who was on the Philmont trip.

The man who was scheduled to speak about the eagle project wasn't able to be there due to a death of a staff member in the ministry. 

Here is C doing his speech. 

This was the photo that Jonathan really wanted. Sheriff Adam presenting Christopher with his gift. Note: the box is empty due to BSA rules.

We were very happy with our successful ceremony. We got lots of nice compliments from people.

One thing that was unique about this court of honor was the number of friends from outside of scouting that were present. It was a much larger group than is typical. Here are just a few of them.

This is a really close friend of C's who will be going to college in Texas.

The funny thing that we realized after the ceremony was over was that Christopher wasn't presented with his regalia! It was somehow forgotten by the Scoutmaster and/or J. We gave him those items and the later photos include them.

Another eagle scout mom told me that planning an eagle ceremony is like planning a wedding. I wasn't sure about that when she told me that months ago but I agree with her now. 

Note: the majority of these photos were taken by Mr. Nakanishi, dad of Eli, who was our Master of Ceremonies.

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