Winter Court of Honor ’24

Another beautiful Court of Honor with 20 rank advancements and 73 merit badges plus several other camp and national awards. It’s been a busy six months for the troop. Since our last Court of Honor, we have rebuilt the benches and a greenhouse in the Woodside High School Green Academy garden for Jenny Richter’s Eagle project. Several of our Scouts helped paint a mural at Corte Madera School to memorialize the ancient oak tree that used to mark the center of campus. That was Evyn Ellis’ Eagle project. And Nate Simon, for his Eagle project, refurbished the raised vegetable garden beds at Ronald McDonald House near the Stanford Shopping Center, then planted a salsa garden. We also planted flags on Memorial Day, as usual, to honor our fallen soldiers. We helped the Cub Scout troop, and we pulled invasive Scotch Broom in March. We have a few other service opportunities coming up soon: For her Eagle project, Camilla Khiari will build a display about aviation test pilots for the Hiller Aviation Museum. And Sloane Smith will build hamster feeder boxes for the SPCA. In other news, we had three Scouts attend the National Youth Leadership Training in June – more than we’ve sent there in years. They came back brimming with ideas and energy to push our troop forward. Another 19 went to Oljato for summer camp, where they worked on three merit badges, each, swam, hiked and had a blast. For campouts, a bunch of our Scouts went snow camping in March, several more backpacked in Point Reyes, a handful enjoyed an unusually relaxed campout in the Los Gatos hills. Six went whitewater rafting on the infamous Class IV rapids in the Middle Fork of the American River. For those who don’t know what Class IV means, it’s river rafting jargon for terrifying. And yes, they did “eject” from the boat. These kids are tough! In recent weeks, we’ve also had campouts at the Boulder Creek Scout Reservation, Henry Coe State Park and Costanoa on the coast. They also raised $5,465 at the annual hamburger stand during the town picnic to keep the troop’s dues down.