The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

(Editor’s note: We received this letter this week from a young reader with a special connection to Waitsburg, and we are very pleased to publish his letter.)

Dear Mr. Graham,

My name is Sean William Stonecipher Sollars and I’m in the 6th grade. My mom is Suzanne Stonecipher-Sollars and she grew up in Waitsburg. I’m a Boy Scout and pleased to write about one of my Boy Scout stories. I am working on my communication merit badge, and this is one of the things I’m required to do!

As a small kid, all I wanted was to be a Boy Scout like my cousins. I was a Cub Scout for many years. So, thanks to the help of my mom, I was enrolled. Once I crossed over to Boy Scouts I was doing better than anybody in my age group. I have reached second-class rank quickly, which by the way, is four ranks away from Eagle Scout, while my friends are still at Tenderfoot rank.

My first Boy Scout summer camp was a week long. I was so excited, but the only problem was I way over packed! My backpack was 42 pounds! I wanted it to be 16 pounds! We finally arrived at Camp Pigott and found our campsite. By the way, our campsite was at least two miles away and it was all an uphill hike. My partner and I setup our tent. Then camp supervisors took us on a tour around the camp. There was a shotgun range, a rifle range, a bow-and-arrow range, and a lake to swim in. Not much at camp happened except for the memories, like late night campfires, shooting 12 gauge shotguns, shooting 22 rifles, swimming, and getting five-stared. By the way, that five-star lasted five hours and it stung. All those memories will stick with me. I also earned three merit badges that consist of scouting heritage, finger printing and wilderness survival. For the wilderness survival merit, we had to sleep outside the whole night in a makeshift shelter we made ourselves away from our campsite. The food at Camp Pigott was actually surprisingly good! The camp lasted one week. To be a Boy Scout means to follow the scout oath, scout law, scout motto, and know the scout slogan. Never break those. You follow exactly the law, motto, slogan, and oath.

I joined Scouts because I was looking forward to the adventures, friendships and lifelong lessons and experiences. I also look forward to being able to have a leadership role in Scouts, and a better sense of courage and pride. The main reason, of course, is to be an Eagle Scout. Being an Eagle Scout means showing great respect, showing lots of perseverance, being the best possible me I can be, and accomplishing a great big goal. Being an Eagle Scout will be a lifetime accomplishment. I know it will be hard to accomplish, but I know I can do it.

Thank you for your time in reading my letter. If you feel you want to publish it in your newspaper, go ahead! I want to encourage other boys to be in Scouts.

Sincerely

Sean Scollars

Redmond, Wash.