Drew Stanley leaving for West Point

Drew Stanley is eager to begin his military career at West Point — but he will miss his vacation.

“I’m just out of high school, don’t have a summer, and then have 47 months of college. We get one month off,” he said.

Stanley, 18, leaves Sunday for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to begin cadet basic training.

In addition to the academics, his time will include winter warfare training in Alaska, escape training in North Carolina and infiltration in England.

He’s also looking forward to studying a foreign language.

“I think I’ll take Arabic,” he said.

But somewhere in there, he’ll have to head home for a board of review to finish up his Eagle Scout project.

“The way it’s looking, I’ll have to come back from West Point to do that,” he said.

Eagle Scout status is the highest advancement rank in scouting. Stanley worked his way up, from two years in Cub Scouts and then seven years in Boy Scouts.

His Eagle Scout project was to clean up the Sumpter Cemetery.

“It’s kind of rundown and neglected. They’ve been wanting to fix it up,” he said.

He organized work groups to remove branches, pine needles and cones — “a dumpster truck full.”

Then they planted a couple dozen peonies and repaired about 200 yards of fencing.

Total hours: 165.75.

“Instead of doing a regular campout, we camped at the Sumpter fairgrounds,” he said.

He still has to complete a few merit badges and the board of review to earn the Eagle Scout rank.

In 2009, only 5 percent of Boy Scouts nationwide earned the Eagle Scout rank.

This is, by the way, the 100th anniversary of when Boy Scouts was founded in February 1910 in New York.

Scouting came to Oregon in 1916 when business leaders came out of a meeting “agreeing that Scouting might ‘control the gregarious instinct of young boys and control it through honor and truth, rather than by mischief and depredation.’ ”

“It teaches people to be better people,” Stanley said. “I like the leadership as well as the interaction — being able to learn and then teach.”

He also belongs to Order of the Arrow, a Boy Scouts National Honor Society

“It’s been fun,” he said of his Scouting years.

For more information about Scouts, visit the Web site www.scouting.org.