Trio honored with Eagle Scout ceremony

EAST COUNTY — As A.J. Baily, Wyatt Lewis and Willy Kidd sit around a dining room table, they joke casually as only lifelong friends can do.

The trio — all 18 — started together in Cub Scouts while attending Kinnan Elementary School. With their families, they embarked on monthly camping trips and other adventures, acquiring lifelong skills, merit badges and plenty of shared memories, such as flinging themselves from rope swings and playing a nighttime version of hide-and-seek.

More than a decade later, the men, all members of Boy Scout Troop 181, were honored Monday night, during a special joint Court of Honor ceremony, at which all three men were awarded their Eagle Scout ranking.

“We were definitely always there for each other,” Baily said of their friendship. “It definitely makes it more meaningful (to have our ceremony together).”

They helped each other complete their Eagle Scout service projects, for which each dedicated nights and weekends to soliciting donations, recruiting volunteers and implementing their visions for their Eagle Scout projects.

Lewis revitalized the playground at South Trail Church of Christ, in Sarasota, where he attended church as a child with his grandmother. He and fellow scouts re-mulched the area, restored benches and poured portions of a sidewalk, among other tasks.

Baily built an instruction platform for an endangered-bird aviary at the Crowley Museum and Nature Center.

Kidd built a training deck with two sets of stairs for Southeastern Guide Dogs, which needed the steps to help train guide dogs.

“It feels like there’s a weight lifted off of you,” Lewis said of completing his project.

Having the support of friends going through the same challenges of attaining Eagle Scout also became a motivator, especially when paperwork, schoolwork and other challenges seemed daunting.

“There are a lot of kids who become Life Scouts, the rank before Eagle; you do everything but the (Eagle Scout) project,” Baily said. “I feel like having good friends in scouting helps you get that extra push (to finish).”

The men have helped lead fellow Troop 181 members for the last year, which has been challenging at times, but the venture also has been gratifying, because older scouts plan trips to new camping grounds and other adventures.

“Just about anywhere, there’s something you can apply (from scouting),” Baily said, noting the Boy Scout program not only teaches survival skills, but also leadership, patience and perseverance.

As the 2013-2014 school year begins, the Eagle Scouts will find themselves separated for the first time since their childhood days.

Baily and Kidd, both who graduated from Braden River High School last school year, will head to college — Baily at the University of Florida and Kidd at State College of Florida.

During the school year Baily hopes to attend a few camping trips with his former troop, and Kidd plans to be involved as well, and attend meetings from time to time.

Lewis will be a senior at Braden River this year, and he plans to stay involved as an adult leader, although he no longer will be a member of the troop. He plans to enlist in the U.S. Army upon graduation.

Contact Pam Eubanks at [email protected].

"I feel like having good friends in scouting helps you get that extra push (to finish)."
A.J. Baily