November 9, 2020
This week I met with Ian Kineon. Ian is a 17 year old senior at Wilton High School. Ian plays baseball, the Trombone, and is a member of 16 different clubs. Some of the clubs include the Wilton High School Band (President), Tri-M Music Society (Vice President), Ambler Farm Apprentice Program (Mentor) and Debate Team.
Ian plans on going to college to study Chemical Engineering; his top school choice is Cornell University. He plans on getting a Bachelor of Science Degree and then to graduate school for his PhD.
Ian joined scouts when he was in fifth grade. The thing that he enjoyed most about being a scout is all of the people that he met in it. All of his friends were in his patrol and he enjoyed hanging out with them at meetings and at campouts.
Some important things that he got out of being a scout were the values he learned and the principles that scouting was founded upon which he adopted as his own.
If there was one thing he could change about scouts it would be to change the way things like Merit Badges are done. He felt like it became too much like homework or a project.
His most memorable event was his first Flower Guard camp out. There were about 20 scouts that attended. It was his first camp out with the troop and he just had a great time with the other scouts.
Ian’s Eagle project was to build a fire pit for the Legion Post to retire flags. The legion would retire about 1000 flags a day in their ceremonies. They used to use steel drums before Ian built the fire pit. The entire Eagle Project took 45 days and a total of 131 hours. Four scouts and four outside helpers assisted with the project.
I asked Ian if he could offer any advice to the younger scouts in the troop, what would it be? He said “Do not wait until the last minute to do anything, I did 5 Merit Badges over the course of 1 weekend. Space them out evenly.” I personally think 5 Merit Badges in 1 weekend is crazy!
-Matthew Morano
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