Eagle Scout Banquet honors new Eagle scouts

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The Tavaputs/Buckhorn District Eagle Scout Banquet was held recently at the San Rafael Museum in Castle Dale, Utah. This banquet was provided to honor all those young men that had attained the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America organization during the year 2013.
Miriam Sorensen a member of the Buckhorn District Advancement Committee welcomed the Eagle Scouts, parents, leaders and friends to the 2014 Eagle Scout Banquet. After which the Huntington Stake Eagle Scouts of 2013 led by Kaden Allred presented the flag ceremony. Ryan Cox gave the invocation and blessing on the food.
Drew Leroy of Food Ranch served the banquet after which Danna Gray the Buckhorn District Advancement Chairman from Huntington Stake introduced her son Tyrell Gray as the Guest Speaker. She stated that some of the speakers in the past were Tyrell’s friends whom he exercises with or runs triathlons with. He has a lot of athletic friends. Tyrell also has his guide license. He guides in the United States, Alaska and Canada. He has been to Africa hunting. He has a lot of fun and a lot of work. Tyrell is married and has three children. He travels a lot and has been speaking professionally for a large company. He is one of those that organized the Color Run.
Tyrell Gray started by saying that he was born and raised in Emery County, has a couple of big businesses and today he was able to come home and do a little bit of farming. He then told the story of a young man who had been given the job of plowing a field. The farmer instructed the young man that the furrows had to be straight. In order to keep the rows straight the young man was told to pick a spot on the far edge of the field and go straight towards that spot. Then turn around and pick another spot to go towards that spot. When the farmer came back after a few hours he found furrows tangled all over the field. The farmer asked what did you pick as the spot. The young man said I picked a cow but the cow kept moving.
Tyrell gave to each Eagle Scout a notepad for note taking during his talk. He followed that by explaining that you will have a lot of different experiences in your life.
For your entire life you have been told that you are special or unique. The fact is that you are not special or unique. This last year there were 57,976 Eagle Scouts in the United States. That is five times the number of people in Emery County. From 1912 to 2012 there have been two million scouts that reached the rank of Eagle. There will be 3.3 million people that will graduate from High School this year. So perhaps you are not special or unique.
The US population is more than 300 million people and the world population is more than seven billion. What that means is that there are several people out there that look just like you. Identical. You’re not different. That is what the world will tell you.
My hope is that as I said that, you started to realize and said to yourself, “That guy is wrong, I am different, I am special, I am unique.” You are different. In each of you lie the seeds of greatness. There are opportunities for you that will bless the world. If we see and take those opportunities, the world will try to tell you that you are not different, that you are the norm, but you are not. The opportunities coming your way can give you the chance to make a difference in the world because you are here.
There are a couple of things that you have to keep in balance. We are going to discuss becoming successful physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally. I have had three businesses and I have taken in more than $20 million sales and revenue in the very first year. During that process I have had the opportunity to meet some amazing individuals like Donald Trump and discuss business plans. I started to realize there are four things needed and if you do not keep them in balance, you may be successful in one area, but you won’t be successful on the whole. You won’t make a difference in the world if you don’t keep those four things in balance.
The first subject that we will talk about is health, mental strength, social ability and spirituality. If you’re not in balance with these you become like a tire that is missing the weights on the wheel. It will cause the entire vehicle to start having problems.
We will start off by talking about health. This is my favorite quote. “There is a big difference between doing your best and trying your best.” It comes with preparation. Doing your best means that you were prepared. I could try my best in a fight with a professional boxer and I would lose, because I am not prepared. There is the difference in your life that will indicate whether you will succeed or whether you will fail. Preparation is very important. Louis Pasteur a French scientist made a change in the way we look at microbiology, just because he was prepared. In 1856 Pasteur said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” Your life has been changed by the pasteurization technique that he developed because he was prepared. He was studying constantly, he was observing, he was making scientific notes and he was well prepared.
Let’s talk about of your health. When you have your health you have everything. When you do not have your health, you have nothing. Tyrell went on to tell the story of a friend who built a successful business, but neglected his health and lost everything.
One of my favorite passions is climbing mountains. I love mountaineering. I have climbed every Mountain over 14,000 feet in the Western United States. Someday I will climb Mount Everest and I have studied it. Only six people in the world have been able to climb Mount Everest without oxygen. It is interesting what mountaineering does to your body. The human body is an interesting machine. It is very adaptable. Once you get past about 11,000 feet your body stops turning oxygen into hemoglobin. Oxygen and hemoglobin start to deteriorate rapidly after about 11,000 feet and you start to have major problems like cardiac arrhythmia. Pulmonary problems and you literally can’t breath and fluid builds up on your lungs and the body will start to die. But your body can adapt to these conditions. By being properly prepared individuals have climbed Mount Everest without the use of oxygen.
Set your goals as a human being, you need to focus on all four of these aspects for some part of your day, every day. Your health is probably the most important one.
I started in sports triathlons after I graduated from college because I wanted something active. I wanted something fun to do and I love the lifestyle. Doing triathlons is not something that you just start doing. The Iron man distance races that I get involved with the swim is 2.4 miles, then 114 miles on the bike and after that, you run the marathon, 46.2 miles. Almost anyone in this room could do the marathon if they prepared for that.
I get up at five o’clock in the morning and exercise for an hour and a half. There are many stresses in life. I promise you that you will be more successful if you will take the time to be healthy. A study of the top five executives in the Fortune 500 indicated the thing they had in common was that they all ran. Make sure your health is important to you and that you’re working on your health.
Plato said he believed that one day we would be able to cure our illnesses with food. Nowadays I think some of the illnesses we have is caused by the food you eat. Make sure the food you’re eating is clean.
Next we’ll talk about mental ability. It is important for you to go to school to study, but don’t stop when you graduate. Make it a passion throughout your life to continue to study and learn. This studying and learning will affect your family for generations to come.
Tyrell told the story of a runner who with another airman survived 72 hours in a life raft on the Pacific Ocean during World War II. Then the Japanese captured them. They were beaten, given inadequate food and forced into hard labor. To help them survive he and his companions learned to use their minds to take them mentally out of the place in which they were. When they were deprived of food, they would sit down and try to learn from each other. They focused so strongly they were able to create a mental peace that you would think would be impossible to live under those conditions. Everyone can do that exact same thing. We just choose not to. We’re just not making the best use of our time. What you do in your off time will determine how successful you will be. I spend my off time in learning and studying. What you learn is yours for life.
It doesn’t matter what you’re planning to do with your life. It doesn’t matter whether you’re planning to be a farmer or you’re planning to be an athlete. Studying and learning can make you the very best at what you do.
Spirituality is next. Remember, there are four keys you’ve got to work on every day. You’ve got to get up. You’ve got to exercise and you’ve got to study something that you are doing. You’ve got to make yourself better and you have got to be working on your spirituality. My favorite quote is in 2nd Nephi 33:3 feast upon the words of Christ. There is a difference in living your spirituality. In my religion it is one of the religions that you have to live. We are a peculiar people. When you get outside Utah you are kind of different you are out of the norm and so people will notice you. It is important that you live your religion. Not preach it but live it. I find this ironic when I talk to people who say I read my scriptures, I go to church, and I am good. That is not what makes the difference. The difference is all of the things combined in your life everyday that show what your beliefs are. We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
Your spirituality at the end of the day is what matters. You need to make sure you are making the most of that human experience and that you are sharing that experience with others. Helping them to become spiritual beings.
In Alma 30:44 it states that all things denote that there is a God. There is an underlying current in our society today that God does not exist. If you cannot prove it by science then God is not real. Make sure you are studying don’t let society influence you. You influence society. You are the ones that will stand out in a crowd. You are the ones that will make a difference in the world. But you have to be focused. Like everything else it takes work.
There are no shortcuts everything takes work. Your spirituality takes work. It takes effort. If you are not working on it daily then just like a muscle it will atrophy. You have to work on it daily. There are millions of ways to work on it. One of my favorite ways is meditation. At the end of everyday take a minute, say your prayers, thank your heavenly father for what you have been given and focus on what you are trying to be and what you’re are trying to accomplish. Help your spirituality by being charitable to someone else. Try to make someone else’s life better. Strive for that highest plane of spirituality every day.
In Alma 30:44 all things denote that there is a God and if you are spiritual and listening he will tell you all things you need to do. You have all heard of people hearing warning voices or are told something.
My grandfather is an amazing individual. He had one of those experiences. In the war, in a plane, he heard a voice telling him to sit on his flak jacket. After being told a second time to sit on his flak jacket he took off the flak jacket, put it on his seat and again sat down. He said I was sitting on the flak jacket thinking the crew would make fun of me afterwards. At that time an unexploded warhead in the bottom of the plane hit his chair, ricocheted off the chair, hit the ceiling of the plane and went back out the bottom of the plane. The warhead hit the chair so hard it stripped the screws holding the chair down. If grandfather hadn’t been sitting on his flak jacket he would have been killed. It was because my grandfather was a spiritual individual that he was saved.
The last thing is social. Social ability is one thing that is often overlooked by the majority of society. A list of human needs has been identified. There are five different levels in the list of needs. The first need is physiological needs. These needs are things you have to have to survive. You have to have water, food, shelter and air if you do not have those things you won’t survive.
The next level is safety. You want to make sure you and your family are safe. Are you safe and secure in your job. Are you morally safe. We have to know that we are protected. If you do not feel safe you could literally die. As an example a cow can die when frightened. When a cow gets into a position that it feels it cannot get out of being upside down in a ditch or stuck in a fence it will die.
The next level is love. Love is a need of the human psyche, love of family, love of friendship and love of society.
The next level is esteem. Have confidence in you, have confidence in others and have respect.
The last level and the highest is self-actualization. Be creative, have your own personal morality of beliefs and your problem solving ability.
In those five levels only one is physical, the rest are emotional needs. Every one of us needs to be needed and other people want to know that they are needed.
I met Donald Trump, a truly amazing individual. He is and has been very successful. When you walk into a room with him he wants to know about you. He wants to know what your passions are. He wants to know your name. He wants to know about your family. You would never know that he is a successful individual because he is concerned about you. He realizes the human need in being needed. He has made a mark on the real estate world. He has changed the way the laws are written, the way developments are put into effect and he comes across as a loving kind individual.
You need to be anxiously engaged in a good cause, because at the end of the day it should be affecting the lives of others in a positive way.
You are unique and you are special and you can make a difference in the world. You have to decide today that you are going to be someone special. You can sit back and let the world push you along. Or you can put forth the work and the effort of being somebody. Or you can atrophy just like an unused muscle will. Make a difference in the world. Make the world a better place because you were here.
I want each of you to write a personal mission statement as homework. I carry a notebook with me at all times to write down my thoughts, business ideas and list things to be studied, read or accomplished. I write my personal mission statement on the cover of each new notebook.
Decide today who you are, who you want to be and you need to have a plan of how to get there.
Here is the easiest way to write a mission statement.
Steven R. Covey wrote an amazing book, “The Habits of Highly Effective People.” Go to www.franklincovey.com/msb/ and you will get help in writing your mission statement.
The problem that we run into is that we forget who we are. We forget who we want to become.
Decide on your goal and strive for it. One of my personal goals is that I want to be happy. Goals can help make you happy. In Buddhism happy means content with who you are.
If you want to succeed in life you have to have a plan. Write down who you are right now. Who do you want to become?
If you go to college, go with an end in mind that will make you a job.
Write down your mission statement. Build your plan.
Miriam Sorenson introduced Mitchell Hadden and Dennis Dooley representing the Elks BPOE 1550 from Price, Utah. Mitchell Hadden is the Exalted Ruler of the Elks BPOE 1550. BPOE or the benevolent protective order of the Elks. These gentlemen were there to make a presentation to the Eagle Scouts. Mitchell said it is a privilege and an honor to present the scouts with this certificate and an American Flag on behalf of the Protective Order of the Elks.
Dennis Dooley is the past-Exalted Ruler of the BPOE. He said he wasn’t able to make it last year due to an illness. We are honored to be with you tonight. It is wonderful to be with young men who exhibited outstanding dedication. It took dedication to their goal, to their faith and to their task. The Elks is a patriotic organization and a charitable organization. We started just after the Civil War. It is our duty to present a flag and a certificate to every Eagle Scout in the United States.
Two years ago I was diagnosed with incurable cancer. However I am still here and am still fighting through with support and prayers of many people. I tell you this I have met a lot of wonderful people. When the doctor tells you that you have cancer and a short time to live. It does something to you. It definitely focuses your mind and when you start thinking about the time when you may have wronged someone. The times you didn’t say I love you before you lost that person. It definitely changes your world view. I want to say to you do not ever let the sun set on your anger with a loved one. Blessed are the peacemakers.
If you care for someone tell them. If you have dreams start making them come true today not tomorrow. When you are young your life seems to stretch out to infinity but it doesn’t. You became an Eagle Scout so you could become a leader. So be a leader. Start now, not next week. Be involved in the affairs of your family, your church and your community. Tonight is not an ending. I invite all to be the best that you can be. The Eagle Scouts were then presented with plaque a certificate and a flag.