10 May 2009
American Legion’s 2009 Eagle Scout of the Year
Posted by admin under: recognition .
May is the time to find out who the American Legion have selected as their Eagle Scout of the Year.
A South Jordan, Utah, student has been named The American Legion Eagle Scout of the Year for 2009.
Brad P. Jencks, 18, a senior at Bingham High School, earned the award and a college scholarship worth $10,000. The award was announced during The American Legion’s board of directors meeting here.
The award recognizes Jencks’ practical citizenship at school, scouting, and his passion and commitment to community service. For his Eagle Scout project, Jencks found that an old ghost town cemetery where hundreds of people who had died young from tragic deaths such as mining accidents, snow slides, and epidemics, was lost in overgrowth and disrepair. He researched what happened to the people of Bingham City and found baby names on hundreds of headstones, many vandalized and deteriorated headstones, and hundreds of metal markers that could not be read at all. He found notations on headstones in many different languages. He mobilized community volunteers, cleared garbage, weeds and sagebrush from the 8 acres site, photographed and recorded GPS readings of hundreds of headstones, recorded the information into a computer database, repaired vandalized headstones and replaced and installed several headstones from donations.
As a result, people from all over the world have identified ancestors buried there from 30 countries and 38 states. His collection of data now resides with the Utah State Historical Society and a number of graves of war veterans have been identified for appropriate honors. Planning a 100 hour project, Jencks went the extra mile completing the effort after expending 2,790 hours. Jencks has been recognized with the Utah Top High School Volunteer Prudential Spirit of Community Award, the Save Our History National Honors Award from the History Channel, Roots Television Documentary Award, four Presidential Volunteer Gold Service Awards, the U.S. Presidential Volunteer Lifetime Service Award and four National Youth Leadership Outstanding Service Awards from the Boy Scouts of America.
One of our local Boy Scout volunteers has been on a tear lately about how the Mormans have taken over the BSA and I know their reputation for geneology. This story doesn’t identify the youth’s creed, but it sounds likely that he’s LDS.
I think it’s a great project and apparently so does the American Legion (and I bet my suspicious buddy does, too).
- American Legion’s Eagle Scout of the Year
- Veterans Day Preparation
- Sunday’s Golden Girls – 12/21/2008 (delayed)
- Saturday’s Eagle Nest – 11/29/2008
- 3 Bronze, 3 Silver, 3 Gold
