If one were to look up “Eagle Scout” on Wikipedia, one would learn that the term refers to “A Scout with the highest rank attainable in the Boy Scouting program of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). Since 1911, the rank of Eagle Scout has been attained by more than 1.7 million young men.” Recently, seven students here at the high school have become part of this elite group. This is not an easy task, because ascending through the many ranks of scouting requires hours upon hours of completing numerous tasks and projects. The following students earned their place with their required Eagle Scout projects:
Senior Colin Small was responsible for mapping a cemetery in Malvern, specifically an area containing the graves of persons dating back to the time of the Revolutionary War. The main difficulty he encountered in the project, said Colin, was that “I signed up to do it really late, and you have to do [all Eagle Scout projects] before your 18th birthday. I was out there every day working.”
Senior Jay Howson did a project similar to that of Colin by performing maintenance on an area of the same cemetery that held the graves of people that were interred in the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s. “Gravestones that are a hundred years old are really hard to read,” said Jay.
Senior Matt Pelligrino restored the Time Capsule circle in Reeves’ Park, which contains the town’s bicentennial time capsule, buried in 1976, which is scheduled for excavation in the year 2076. Matt’s biggest challenge was the weather. He said, “I had to plant bushes and stuff like that, and it was getting to the late part of the fall [season], so I had to get everything done before the frost hit.”
Senior David Celentano took on a rather large task (fortunately, not alone) of restoring the theater and administration building in the Valley Forge National Historical Park. “It was difficult getting all the people working on the project signed off, because when you’ve got people working [on government property], everything has to be made legitimate, or you know, the Secret Service comes after you,” commented David.
Senior Matt Kunz performed a public service by labeling storm drains with “No Dumping” signs to prohibit dumping of leaves and other objects like trash into them. According to Matt, the hardest part of the project was not the execution, but the planning. He explained, “I’d say the hardest part [of the project] was gathering people together for the project… the main difficulty was making sure that people showed up and knew what they were doing.”
Senior Mike Kassel restored the beverage building of the Valley Forge Volunteer Fire Company, where guests can rent out the space for parties. The difficulty of the project apparently lay in the expense. He commented, “It was difficult because it was pretty expensive to do; I had to do a lot of fundraising… my dad and I hired a few contractors to help [us], so for all the manual labor I didn’t know how to do, they taught me how to do it.”
Senior Zach Johnson helped to expand the existing parking lot at the Phoenixville Area YMCA, which used to be little more than a dirt circle. Thanks to his efforts, it looks neater now, with an 11-space gravel parking lot. Zach said that the project resulted in over 200 hours of work. Zach said, “I had about twenty people total helping me on probably about six or seven weekends, and at the end it was like 234 hours total by everyone’s working hours combined.”
Indeed, it was not entirely easy for these students to perform these projects, but David Celentano provided these words of wisdom: “No matter how huge and wide an obstacle is, if you have your eyes on your goal, you can achieve anything.”
So should you see any of these fellows in the halls, congratulate them on a job well done! These guys have certainly performed a great service to the community.

Posted by
Jacob Unson