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September 28, 2009

Local scout attains Eagle rank

PATTY MILLER

EDMOND — BY PATTY MILLER

THE EDMOND SUN



A love of camping made an easy natural progression from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts for one Edmond young man who recently became an Eagle Scout.

Fifteen-year-old Carey McCachern received the highest honor in Boy Scouts during a ceremony at the Crossings Community Church Pavilion on Sunday.

“I have found that I really love camping,” 15-year-old Carey McCachern said. I’ve been to some really fun and exciting camps.”

He attended Camp Alexander in Colorado three times, and last spring he went sailing in the Florida Keys at Sea Base, a High Adventure camp.

“In July I canoed and portaged 85 miles in the Canadian Quetico at the Northern Tier High Adventure Camp,” Carey said.

Leadership is something emphasized in scouting, and Carey said he has learned to be a leader by accepting positions of leadership within his scout troop.

“I also have learned to be a leader by being in charge of my Eagle project. These opportunities have helped me grow into the person I’ve become today.”

“In 1962 John F. Kennedy said, ‘We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard,’” Carey said.

“I wanted to become an Eagle Scout because it was difficult to achieve.”

Among the things that must be completed in order to achieve the rank of Eagle Scout, Carey had to choose and finish a community project.

“I made five barn owl nesting boxes for Martin Park Nature Center in Oklahoma City,” Carey said. “The park rangers had seen some barn owls in the area and wanted to encourage their nesting by providing more secure nesting locations for them.”

He met with the Martin Nature Park rangers and then designed the project. With donated materials for the project from Lowes, Carey and his father worked together to cut out all the pieces for the 2-foot-tall boxes.

“Then, I worked with a group of friends, and we assembled and sealed the boxes. After that, I led a team of volunteers who placed the boxes about 15 feet up in trees. Hopefully, there will soon be owls living in the boxes.”

Carey is a sophomore at Deer Creek High School. He began in scouting in 1999 as a member of Cub Scout Pack 171. After receiving his Arrow of Light award in 2005, he moved on to Boy Scout Troop 599, which meets at the Church of the Resurrection on North Rockwell.

In addition to completing a major community service project to earn scouting’s highest award, Carey had to earn 21 merit badges and serve as a leader in his troop. The project encompassed 220 volunteer hours.

Besides Boy Scouts, Carey plays the euphonium in the Deer Creek High School Band, attends Crossings Community Church and is a member of the 2008-09 Teen Board of the Oklahoma Heritage Association. Carey has hopes of becoming an engineer and currently attends the pre-engineering academy at Francis Tuttle Vocational Technical School.

He is the son of John and Cindy McCachern.

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