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June 17, 2004
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June 17, 2004 |
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Planning to soar with Eagle Scouts
Back when Alban Holyoke was a “little punk” in the seventh grade, he said, he wasn’t sure he wanted to join the Boy Scouts. Everyone he knew, including his older brother, Tristan, made fun of the all-boy organization. “Scouts weren’t really the top of the game at the Holyoke household,” Alban said. Then he learned that scouts play with fire and knives, and there was no question he would don a Boy Scout uniform and join immediately. Now 17 years old and five ranks deep, Alban wants nothing more than to reach the highest level of scouting, Eagle Scout. He wants it so badly, he’s out for blood. On Tuesday, June 22, from 3 to 6:30 p.m., Alban will prove his commitment to the scout oath of helping others by putting on the annual Battle of the Badges blood drive in the Bryan Community Center gym. The challenge of the drive is traditionally between the local fire and police departments, but Alban is encouraging anyone who is eligible to donate this year. People 17 and older and weighing more than 110 pounds can donate. The actual blood donation takes just 10 minutes, but the entire process, including the screening and snacks, donated by Tom’s Market and Current Cuisine, takes about an hour. “Let it be known,” Holyoke said as a challenge to the police, “that the fire department has won for the last 20,000 years.” Alban said he plans to donate blood for the first time this year. Though he doesn’t relish the idea of needles, he said he can’t justify a refusal to contribute to his Miami Valley neighbors something his body can regenerate so easily. Statistically, 9 out of 10 people will need blood at some time in their lives, he said. “Chances are you’ll need it or your best friend will need it in your lifetime,” he said. “So why not give it if you have it?” Alban chose to organize the blood drive as the project he needs to become an Eagle Scout. After the drive, he has six months to acquire three more merit badges, giving him a total of 21 in everything from archery and climbing to computer science and veterinary medicine. He must also demonstrate a wide range of technical survival skills as well as leadership and mentoring abilities to a committee that will choose to grant or deny his advancement. “If I get Eagle Scout — Oh God, I want to get it. If I get it, I’m an Eagle Scout for the rest of my life,” Alban said. Alban said that he feels ready to carry the scout identity with him as he heads into his senior year at Yellow Springs High School and beyond. He likes his role as senior patrol leader of Yellow Springs Troop 78, the highest position in the local troop of 30 boys. He likes the challenge of being both a leader and a friend to the other scouts, he said. “Let me break it down, being a patrol leader is pretty cool,” he said. If Alban meets his goal, he will be the first boy in nine years to reach Eagle Scout in Yellow Springs. There is an age gap between his peers and the next set of patrol leaders because, he said, around age 15 boys tend to trade in scouting for “cars and girls,” he said. Alban left the Boy Scouts briefly when he was 15, but, he said, he soon realized that he had an opportunity to develop independence, self-knowledge and a value system through scouting that would last much longer than the teenage distractions threatening to derail him. “Boy Scouts is this unattainable thing, this unattainable law you try to get to,” he said, listing the attributes of a scout as trustworthy, loyal, courteous, helpful, thrifty, brave. “You have to embody what a scout is in your everyday life because if you don’t live it, it doesn’t mean anything.” When Alban turns 18, he will no longer be considered a Boy Scout and will not be able to wear his badges, pins and other decorations of achievement, he said. But as soon as he is able he plans to become an assistant scoutmaster and eventually the leader of a troop. He also said he plans to live the scout way by becoming a firefighter when he grows up. He has volunteered with Miami Township Fire-Rescue for three years as an Explorer Scout and through the mentoring of Fire Chief Colin Altman and his scoutmaster, Scott Hoskett, Alban has decided many of his future aspirations. Holyoke’s father, Andy, who has volunteered with the fire department, also influenced him by riding with him in the firetrucks when Alban was a boy and organizing several blood drives in town as well. For Alban, donating time and energy to save lives in any way, including giving blood, is part of being a firefighter, and in the larger scheme of things, living up to the ideals of Boy Scouting. “We are generations of firefighters,” Alban said. “I have to do it. It’s kind of in my blood.”
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