Friends earn elusive Eagle Scout rank

Not every boy who begins his journey with the Boy Scouts of America will earn the coveted rank of Eagle Scout — only 5 percent of all Boy Scouts do so.

But the Scouts in Troop No. 24 have broken the statistic with five troop members earning the highest rank in scouting.

“You pretty much work for that (Eagle Scout) over the course of the seven years,”

18-year-old and 2007 Nevada Union High School graduate Eric Gillespie said. “I built a greenhouse for the Grass Valley Charter School. I wanted to give something back to the school because I went there from second grade to fifth grade and really enjoyed my time there.”

Gathering donations from Bob and Denise Stein and Casey Wood, Gillespie and his team of volunteers spent a month constructing the glass building. The project was completed in time to grow native plants for the restoration of nearby Peabody Creek.

Following in Gillespie’s footsteps, 2007 NU grad Cody Curtis, 18, organized and constructed a Batwa dwelling in the African nation of Uganda to earn his Eagle Scout rank. Curtis spent three weeks in the desert to improve the health and condition of a family there.

“It took five days and many logged hours,” Curtis said. “I led a team of Pygmies, in the Dwindi region, and built a hut.”

Gillespie and Curtis’ fellow Scouts Cooper Levy, Daniel Agness and Stephen Sarantopoulos simultaneously earned badges doing other community-centered projects.

Levy, who graduated from NU in 2006, built a bicycle path for the KARE Crisis Nursery in Grass Valley.

The project of 15-year-old Daniel Agness — to finish and renovate the Manzanita Family Center playground on Rough and Ready Highway west of Grass Valley — grew from his commitment to community service.

Sarantopoulos, 18, worked for six years on his Environmental Science merit badge to earn his Eagle Scout award.

The Eagle Scout ceremony makes the rank “official” after the lengthy process of the project, Gillespie said. The friends from Troop No. 24 “decided to do a group ceremony together. It was good to have a ceremony with the friends that I’ve gone through scouting with since I started scouting.”

“A lot of those guys I’ve been doing campouts and what-not with for over six years,” Curtis said. “It was nice to finish it with the people I started with.”

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To contact Staff Writer Lindsey Croft, e-mail lindseyc @theunion.com or call 477-4247.