Eight Eagle Scouts leave the nest in Class of 2024

MONTICELLO — The newly graduated Class of 2024 includes a group of eight Eagle Scouts, a band of brothers who grew close over their Scouting careers as they gave back to the community, served as youth leaders, developed key life skills and formed a tight-knit bond of friendship that will last beyond their time together in Monticello.

Eagle Scout is the highest rank attainable in the Boy Scouts of America, and, since its inception in 1911, only 4% of Scouts have earned this rank, according to the organization.

“This year in the senior class, there are eight young men who have earned their Eagle Scout award,” said Monticello’s Troop 270 leader Sue Stone. “This is highly unusual to have this many in a class this size.”

Dating back to its first Eagle Scouts in 1964, the local troop typically sees about one to three Scouts achieve this milestone per year.

Some years do have more than others, such as 2001, which had five Eagles, or the record of 11 set in 2012.

Earning the Eagle rank is a significant achievement, taking much time and effort.

“It involves earning 21 merit badges, holding various leadership positions and developing and leading an Eagle Scout project involving volunteers,” Stone said. “A lot of these projects go well over 100 hours of work.”

It’s a years-long process that starts from the beginning of their time in the Boy Scouts.

“When the boys come into the troop at 10-11 years old, they start working on ranks and badges right away that all go toward their Eagle award,” Stone said. “They continue this until they turn 18.”

It’s a significant and rare accomplishment to have eight Eagles leaving the nest this year, leaders said.

Seven of the Eagles graduated from Monticello High School on Friday, June 7. They include two valedictorians, Paul Fasen and Nicholas Thovson, along with one bound for the military, Jackson Montgomery, headed for active duty in the Army ROTC. The others are Dawson Gearey, Trevor Koenig, Jude Bondhus and Quinn Crummy.

Fellow Eagle Scout Thomas Lerfald graduated from nearby STMA High School, after having attended Monticello schools earlier in his education.

Spending some time with the octet of Eagles from Troop 270, it is clear that they have forged an unbreakable bond over their past near-decade together.

The group was formed following fifth grade, the point when Cub Scouts become Boy Scouts at around 10 years old.

“We’ve all known each other eight years or more,” said Crummy. “Some of us were in the same Cub Scout pack, so some of us have known each other for over 10 years.”

Now, with high school over, their time together is coming to a close.

“We’re all about to disperse off to possibly different parts of the country,” Crummy said. “I’ve definitely made great friends here. It’s kind of like leaving a bunch of family members.”

Although college and careers will take them in different directions, they plan to stay in touch.

“We acknowledge we’re all going our separate ways, but we will always have this in common and I’m sure we’ll all be able to reconvene somewhere down the road,” Lerfald said.

At least two of the teens will stick together after high school, with Koenig and Bondhus both heading off to the University of Minnesota Duluth, where they will be roommates.

“Some of my best friends have been made in Scouting and I have some of my fondest memories in Scouting too,” said Koenig. “One of my best friends, Jude (Bondhus), I met here. We’re going to college together and rooming together.”

Bondhus remembers a time when they were still strangers, just meeting for the first time, but said the rigors of Scouting, with its camping trips, merit badges and team activities, pushed them to become fast friends.

“Being forced into an environment with people that you might not like at first, and being forced to live with these people forces you to adapt and grow together,” he said.

Thovson agreed, and said camping, in particular, such as their annual trips to Many Point Scout Camp in the northern part of the state, or local stays at Lake Maria State Park, served to link them.

“When you have to work with a group of people for almost everything at a camp — you’re cooking together, you’re cleaning together, you’re setting up tents together — everything is community-based,” he said. “You all have to help and look after each other. And that really forms some strong bonds, especially over the course of a weeklong camp.”

The memories made on these adventures are priceless, as were the opportunities that Scouting afforded them, from sailing trips to shower-singalongs.

“There’s so many camping experiences, and scouting experiences in general, that you wouldn’t be able to get anywhere else, or you wouldn’t be able to plan on your own,” Koenig said. “I don’t know that most people can plan on kayaking out to an island in Florida and staying on the island for four days.”

That trip was back in August of 2021, when the group manned a Polynesian war canoe, heading off to an uninhabited island in the Florida Keys.

There’s also been plenty of silly, goofy adventures for this army of Eagles. Looking back on their fondest memories, several mention the time that Koenig caught a seagull — and earned two slushies for his bird-capturing effort.

It hasn’t been all fun and games, though. During one of their annual summer camping trips at Many Point, three of the Eagles weathered a rough wilderness experience together, which only served to strengthen their bond.

“Trevor, Dawson and I, we had the opportunity to go off into the woods equipped with only our backpacks,” Lerfald said. “We created a shelter and slept in that overnight, and that night it also happened to downpour. I would say that night definitely brought us three closer.”

Another thing that brought them even closer was working on their Eagle projects together.

“Each one of us here as an Eagle had to complete an Eagle Scout project, which is a service project that has to have a lasting impact on a nonprofit or the community in general,” Thovson said.

These projects included repairing and repainting a large fence at Sand Dunes State Forest; building roofs for kiosk signs at Bertram Chain of Lakes Regional Park; building and renovating tables and furniture at the Monticello Help Center; fixing up the edging on the playground at Ellison Park; putting together and sending 430 pounds of care packages to an air base of American troops in Africa; landscaping at a local church; building map-holders for a snowmobile club; and even building surrounds for porta-potties so that they can’t be tipped over and vandalized.

While every Scout had to complete his own project — planning, organizing, leading and managing it himself — each received help from his fellow troop members.

“The entire community of Scouts gathers together and helps each other get their Eagle (rank),” Thovson said. “It’s not just Scouts, we can invite other community members, like family and friends, but it’s mainly the Scouting community who comes and supports each other.”

“It’s such a good thing when the entire community comes together to help one person and to help the entire community of Monticello as a whole,” he said. “It’s such an important thing.”

Lerfald believes this ability to come together as a team to wholeheartedly support one another is what sets Troop 270 apart from others.

“What makes our Monticello group here special is that we have a very tight-knit community,” he said. “Everybody works to uplift each other and we can go to others for help. We all work to help each other and we all want to see each other succeed. We don’t care where you come from, what you’re physically capable of. We all work together as one extended family.”

This brotherhood also helped the Scouts get through the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic together, a time when the organization as a whole lost many members. While Troop 270 did lose some Scouts over that period, it maintained a fairly large number of youth who were able to stick it out.

“We currently have about 40 Scouts in our troop which is really something because most of the troops coming through COVID lost most of their Scouts, who never came back,” Stone said.

“COVID definitely took a toll on us,” said Crummy, who was born into a family of Eagles.

As the youngest of five children, he’s the fourth boy in the family to earn the Eagle rank.

“All of my older brothers were in Scouts, so I was guaranteed to go into Scouts,” he said. “Three of my four older brothers became Eagles.”

Montgomery also comes from a line of them. The third-generation Eagle said his father and grandfather were both Eagle Scouts.

It’s a rank that will serve these youths well in life, according to Stone, who said both of her sons have been helped in their adult lives by their Eagle statuses.

“When you’re a captain of a sports team, that basically ends when you graduate from high school,” she said. “The Eagle stays with you for life. It made a big difference for both our sons.”

It’s something that top colleges look for when considering applications, she said: “I’ve been told that college admissions, when they go through candidates, they pull out valedictorians first and they pull out Eagle Scouts second.”

As for the Eagles of Troop 270, they said the benefits of Scouting have enriched their lives in so many ways already.

Several cited leadership as one of the most important qualities they were able to hone.

“I’ve learned a lot about leadership, how to guide others, work in small groups and also recognize how to utilize what other people are good at,” Lerfald said. “I utilize those skills almost daily.”

“Scouting is one of the first leadership opportunities I was able to participate in,” Fasen said. “It was the thing that taught me how to work with people who are at my age at the same peer level in a leadership position. That’s something that doesn’t necessarily happen in other youth-led organizations.”

“A lot of the things that I have learned are how to manage your stress and also how to manage a lot of people,” Koenig said. “I also grew closer with nature. I figured out what I want to do with my life. Right now, I’m going into environmental and outdoor education. This kind of led me into that role and helped me figure out what I want to do when I grow up.”

“One of the main takeaways I’ve ever had from Scouts is communication skills,” Crummy said. “The communication skills and all the people that you get to meet along the way and make friends with, it allows you to just become a better you. Especially going to college, just being able to communicate with professors, teachers and other students as well is something that’s probably key.”

Scouting also teaches responsibility, Thovson said.

“One of the biggest things about Scout leadership is that your actions have a true amount of weight,” he said. “If I’m a patrol leader and I don’t delegate the right people to do the job, it’ll have a negative impact on the entire patrol. That’s really why Scouting teaches responsibility in a way.”

Koenig also said Scouting taught him how to get along with all kinds of people, and become a more empathetic person.

“It helps you kind of build that empathy,” he said. “You learn that you’re not the only person in the world. Everybody is different, everybody else’s life is different than yours and you need to work together with these people despite these differences.”

As they each head off into the world, the eight Eagles of Monticello’s Troop 270 will carry these life lessons, treasured memories and strong friendships with them.

“It stays with you forever,” Koenig said. “You’re always an Eagle Scout.”