We travelled back to Michigan for a quick trip to attend a Boy Scouts of America award night. David received the Honor Award with Crossed palms, an award for saving a life, which is the highest award a scout can receive for bravery. Since 1927 when the award was introduced, there have been only 274 of these medals given for bravery.
The award can be given to any scout or scout leader so as David was a cub scout, he qualified. Here is David and Mom, Mary. Mark's parents also came out so both sets of grandparents were there for this event
The story began last year when Mary and her friend Aubrey wanted to take the kids to the frozen Wing lake a block from their home in Bloomfield Hills. The kids of course ran ahead and got on the ice. The dock which is more in the center of the lake was tethered to the shoreline but in the deep part of the lake over kids head. David's friend, Adde, fell through the ice but caught herself with her elbows, but could not get out. David reached down and pulled her out out of the lake Then they looked for the little brother, Hayden 2 years old, (who is a little pile of almost uncontrolled energy) and couldn't find him. They spotted him on the far side of the dock, in the water, face down making no sounds and was a bit cyanotic. David went out on the thin ice to pull him out of the water. The Mom's were there, wrapped the kids warmly and took them to Mary's and put the kids in a warm tub and they were OK.
They did not make much of this as it is almost routine in families to save lives or prevent major injury or harm and we did not hear about it. The scoutmaster at church heard the story, thought it was remarkable, and sent it into the Boy Scouts of America. They came out and interviewed everyone and checked out the site and the word came through that David would receive the highest award for valor and bravery for actions with no thought for himself. Then we heard that the Governor, Governor Synder, of Michigan would present the award and we scheduled our trip.
There is a good video that was broadcast over local TV in Detroit after the award. Click on this link to see the TV news clip.
We went to the awards dinner which was a huge deal. There were about 350 there plus Governor Snyder. David was the first to receive an award and what was cool that afterward, other young Eagle Scouts came up to him to shake his hand. Proud moment for all. Most of the scout leaders had never seen this award.
But we had a "Two-fer" as Bryan received an award as well.
All eight of our boys earned their Eagle award and several of the grandchildren have followed along as well. I never made it to Eagle as I could not qualify for First Class because one had to swim a certain distance and I never learned to swim, My Father instinctively kept us out of the New York Citty pools. The only time I was in a pool was when I got baptized in a NYC YMCA pool. Dad was proven to be right as later it was discovered that one source of the great polio epidemics in New York was related to swimming pools.
So we are proud of David and happy that all are well. Proud of Bryan as well and what he does for scouting.
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Here is Juju. Suz's daughter. (We sometimes call her the Great Juge).
She had to write a biography for her English class and chose to do a biography of the Opa. There were several sessions at night for interviews and searching through photo files for old pictures. Just a small fraction of the stories. She would received extra credit if she had a photo of the person she interviewed and here is the extra credit photo. She put my missionary picture on the cover. Neat little gal and she got an "A" for her 27 page biography.
More on our visit to Michigan later. Love to all, we pray for you all each and every day.
Love, Dad and Mom
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