Scott Swanson
When Reed Meyers completed his Eagle Scout project in July, he was following a family tradition in a big way.
He’s the fifth boy in his immediate family to achieve Scouting’s highest rank, following his brothers Robert, Raymond, Rolan and Randy. Their father, Dick Meyers, said his two youngest sons are about to begin their quest for their Eagle badges.
Reed Meyers, 18, initially planned to simply fix up the softball field behind the Foster School gym, which hadn’t had much maintenance in recent years and needed some upgrading.
“I like baseball, personally,” he said. “It’s a good sport.”
In April he began repairing the backstop where the chain link fencing had been ripped away from the frame, cleaned up the field and procured some new bases to install on the field.
“There were just impressions where the bases had been,” he said. “Figuring out where the bases went took a 100-foot tape and some measuring.”
Then his project started growing.
“I decided to build two (picnic) tables for the garden area,” he said, referring to the school’s vegetable garden located on the south end of the playground. He ended up building two picnic tables that will be used for classroom activities and other functions, said Rich Little, director of the After School Program at Foster.
Meyers said the project included a lot of organization. He was able to get help from teens involved in the Wednesday evening youth activity at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
“I had 18-some people working,” he said.
Little said that Meyers had to coordinate with the Boys and Girls Club and the school district to get the green light to work on the field.
“A lot of people had to give him the OK,” he said. “He’s just been a real steady worker here. It’s taken a lot of good, solid planning. He’s done a nice job. People are using the picnic tables. This morning boys were playing on the softball field.”
Meyers said he also got some unexpected help from a neighbor, who saw him working and brought over an industrial-strength mower to mow the garden area.
Reed has been officially notified that he is approved for the Eagle Scout rank and his family is working to put together a Court of Honor in which the badge will be presented, his father said.
Dick Meyers said he was a Star Scout, but never reached the Eagle rank himself.
He said he went to the Valley Forge Jamboree in 1957 and was made an a junior scoutmaster by his troop in Pendleton for the event. He said that experience kind of derailed his progress toward higher ranks, though eventually, as an adult, he served on an Eagle Badge review board himself.
Meyers said that the key to earning the badge is organization and leadership.
“We looked more for leadership than an actual project,” he said. “The Eagle rank is the the last of the ranks for Scouts. That’s their graduation. It’s basically designed to develop leadership skills.”
For his son, the payoff was watching the youngsters use the field and the tables.
“I’m just glad that everybody enjoys it,” Reed Meyers said.