Lifting a legacy: Charlo teen earns Eagle Scout status
Megan Strickland
Ryan Fullerton saltues the flag flying from a pole erected as part of his Eagle Scout project.
Megan Strickland
Members of the Veteran's Honor Guard help new Eagle Scout Ryan Fullerton raise the first flag to fly on a flagpole in front of the Charlo-Moiese Fire Department. The flagpole was erected as part of Fullerton’s Eagle Scout project.
Megan Strickland
Members of the Veteran's Honor Guard help new Eagle Scout Ryan Fullerton raise the first flag to fly on a flagpole in front of the Charlo-Moiese Fire Department. The flagpole was erected as part of Fullerton’s Eagle Scout project.
Megan Strickland
Members of the Veteran's Honor Guard help new Eagle Scout Ryan Fullerton raise the first flag to fly on a flagpole in front of the Charlo-Moiese Fire Department. The flagpole was erected as part of Fullerton’s Eagle Scout project.
Megan Strickland
Members of the Veteran's Honor Guard help new Eagle Scout Ryan Fullerton raise the first flag to fly on a flagpole in front of the Charlo-Moiese Fire Department. The flagpole was erected as part of Fullerton’s Eagle Scout project.
Megan Strickland
Members of the Veteran's Honor Guard help new Eagle Scout Ryan Fullerton raise the first flag to fly on a flagpole in front of the Charlo-Moiese Fire Department. The flagpole was erected as part of Fullerton’s Eagle Scout project.
Megan Strickland
Members of the Veteran's Honor Guard help new Eagle Scout Ryan Fullerton raise the first flag to fly on a flagpole in front of the Charlo-Moiese Fire Department. The flagpole was erected as part of Fullerton’s Eagle Scout project.
Megan Strickland
Members of the Veteran's Honor Guard help new Eagle Scout Ryan Fullerton raise the first flag to fly on a flagpole in front of the Charlo-Moiese Fire Department. The flagpole was erected as part of Fullerton’s Eagle Scout project.
Megan Strickland
Friends and fellow Boy Scouts of Ryan Fullerton watch as the first flag flies from Fullerton’s Eagle Scout project.
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For most people it takes a lifetime of work to leave some enduring lasting contribution to society.
Ryan Fullerton is just 17 years old, yet last week a crowd of at least 50 people came out to see what will be part of his legacy – a flagpole in front of the Charlo Fire Department.
Fullerton began collecting scrap metal in June 2012 to raise money for a flagpole at the firehall. The project is a necessary capstone for a scout to complete the high honor.
“It’s a leadership requirement,” chairman of the Silverton Boy Scouts district Mike Murray said. “He takes this on. He lines up any work. If he needs money he has to raise it.”
Fullerton sold several loads of scrap metal to raise the $2,400 to pay for the flagpole, its installation by multiple contractors, and the brick and mortar pedestal it sits on.
“We had local construction people come out,” Fullerton said. “We had one guy fill the hole and another guy fill it with concrete … some masonry guys from Arlee came out and did the brick work. A different set of contractors did work on the cap. The Cahoon family came out and he had a boon truck and it’s in two pieces so we had to slide the pieces together. So we slid the pieces in together and tapped sand in around it. It was a long process.”
The accomplishment put Fullerton in an elite group of two million Americans who have earned Eagle Scout honors in the past century. Of those two million, 39 went on to become astronauts and one was President Gerald Ford. A large proportion of the graduates of academies of the United States Armed forces are Eagle Scouts, Murray noted.
“I’ve had Eagle Scouts come to me and say, ‘I was an Eagle Scout,’” Murray said. “I tell them: ‘No, you are an Eagle Scout. You are an Eagle Scout for the rest of your life.’”
Eagle projects have rigorous requirements of community service and documentation that must be met, but at the end of it all, there is a tiny legacy the new Eagle has left behind.
“Say you grow up and your son becomes an Eagle Scout, you can drive by here and tell him, ‘That flagpole was my Eagle project,’” Murray said.
After a first presentation of colors by the Mission Valley Honor Guard and Charlo Police Department, Ryan thanked the community who helped him with the accomplishment and said he looked forward to that day many years in the future when he sees the flag.
“I would like to thank my parents especially, because they were very key,” Fullerton said. “Without them I wouldn’t be here today, literally. Just thank you. It was a lot of work, but I think it’s worth it and hopefully it’s here for the next eighty years or so.”
