An Eagle Scout Court of Honor was held at the Centre Congregational Church Sunday to celebrate five young men in Troop 48 of Lynnfield achieving the highest rank for Boy Scouts of America.
Christopher Gonzalez, Jack Mackey, Matthew Squadrito, Isaac Medford, and Erik Bell were presented with a neckerchief signifying their rank at the ceremony and received a citation from State Sen. Brendan Crighton to honor their achievements.
The Scouts being celebrated earned their achievements at different times, spanning from July 2023 with Gonzalez, to the most recent with Bell in December of last year.
“The Scouts typically like to, rather than do them individually, to do them together with all the kids that they came up through the ranks with,” Troop 48 Assistant Scoutmaster Gordon Forrest said. “Gonzalez was from July of 2023, he graduated high school and is working in the electrician business. The other four guys are all graduating high school this June.”
To become an Eagle Scout, they had to serve as a Life Scout, the preceding rank, for six months, serve in a position of leadership in the troop for six months, earn 21 merit badges, 13 of which are from a required list, and lead an Eagle Scout service project.
“This is a project that needs to be performed for the benefit of some other group. So it could be a church, it could be a school, it could be for the town, It’s for some other organization other than scouting itself,” Forrest said. “One of the Scouts partnered with Lynnfield Rotary Club. A couple of the Scouts worked with the town of Lynnfield Open Space Committee and Conservation Commission”
Bell, who is planning on studying a healthcare-related field after high school, worked with the Lynnfield Open Space Committee to construct bat boxes at the Beaver Dam Brook Reservation. Mackey also did his project at the reservation, where he led volunteers in trail building and trail restoration.
Meanwhile, Medford, who plans to study landscape architecture in college, led a team of volunteers to landscape at Temple Tiferet Shalom in Peabody.
“That interaction with town bodies or interactions with church or temple elders is all part of the process,” Forrest said. “We see these Scouts kind of mature and really have an opportunity to demonstrate leadership.”
Echoing this sentiment was Chair of the Select Board Dick Dalton, who attended the celebration of the Scouts to present them with certificates from the town, thanking them for their volunteering service.
“For 72 years now, Scouts of Troop 48 have been providing service to the town. They’re happy to do it. It’s a big part of what we do,” Forrest said. “Eagles Scouts, they know how to do hard work and they know how to interact with adults. I think for people who are familiar with Scouting, it’s still very much an important thing.”
He explained how that’s especially felt in Lynnfield, where the percentage of Scouts who end up earning Eagle is much higher than the national average of around 6%.
In addition, Forrest says the number of people joining Boy Scouts of America is rising as a whole, rebounding back from a dry spell during the pandemic.
“Very few, if any, of our Lynnfield athletes will go on to become collegiate athletes or professional athletes, but they all could have the opportunity to earn their Eagle Scout, which pays tremendous dividends as they move on into their professional careers,” Forrest said. “I think for the families that have stuck with it, for the families that have had multiple children go through the program, who maybe even have multiple Eagle Scouts, they clearly see the commitment.”
