BOE Recognizes Scouting’s Eagle and Gold Awards

This spring the Montville Township Board of Education [BOE] recognized three Montville Township High School [MTHS] students who have achieved highest honors in Scouting.

Eagle Scout, Greg Schmitt, from Boy Scout Troop 74, was honored at the May 30 meeting, and Gold Award Girl Scouts, Deanna Passaretti and Piper Rawding, from Girl Scout Troop 2058, received honors on June 3.

Schmitt earned his Eagle Scout award by assisting the Montville Township Historical Society and the Montville Reformed Church. The MTHS senior organized and spearheaded a cleaning program to help renew and preserve historic grave stones at the church, which has been home to Troop 74 for seventy-five years. In completing his project, Schmitt cleaned fifty-eight headstones. Many of the cemetery’s stones date back to colonial times, and mark the graves of early Montville families.

Schmitt’s older brothers, Nick and Adam, are also Eagle Scouts and attended the BOE meeting.

Board President, Dr. Karen Cortellino, noted that Schmitt also serves as a volunteer firefighter in the Montville community.

Senior Deanna Passaretti earned the Girl Scout Gold Award by creating an on-line literary magazine for MTHS called Montville Muse.

Over sixty students submitted work ranging from poetry to photography, and stories to drawings. Passaretti compiled, edited and promoted three issues of the on-line magazine. As a result of the publication’s success, MTHS will fund the Muse as an afterschool club beginning in the fall of 2014.

“It’s wonderful,” Cortellino said. “It really does contribute to the high school environment.”

Piper Rawding’s Gold Award project focused on children at New Jersey Battered Women’s Services. Through art, the MTHS senior taught children to express their emotions in a healthy way. The project also encouraged the development of critical thinking skills that will serve the children throughout their lives.

“She inspired children to learn that they can be anything they want to be if they put their mind to it,” Cortellino read from the plaque she presented to Rawding on behalf of the Montville BOE.

Following the presentations, all three Scouts were thanked for their dedication and hard work for the community.