It all started when Steve Halverson of Monona, WI, was a Scout in Eagle Grove as a boy, along with his cousin.
“When I was in scouts, and this would have been in the late 1970’s,” Halverson explained to the Eagle by phone, “the scoutmasters would often talk about Howard Schoonover, and how he was not only a veteran of the Spanish-American war, but he also founded the first Boy Scout troop west of the Mississippi. And we were a part of that same troop. It really got to me.” He decided that Schoonover deserved a monument. “I’ve been thinking about that for decades,” Halverson said.
He also wanted to honor a more recent legendary Eagle Grove scout, Aaron Eilerts. “What kind of also motivated me was, thinking about Aaron, I thought if not for that tragedy he would have been a shoe-in for Eagle Scout,” Halverson said. “I thought, wouldn’t it be great if someone in his troop could do this monument almost like doing Aaron’s Eagle Scout project for him? Sort of to honor them both.”
So he had an artist’s rendering drawn up, and reached out to the current scoutmaster here in Eagle Grove, Rick “Red” Dawson. He would pledge the first $2,000.00 to the project, he told him, if Dawson had a scout who was ready for the challenge.
“When I got the call,” Dawson said in an interview in the Eagle’s office, “I knew just the guy for the job.”
Cole Fourage, now a seventeen year old Life Scout, was up to the challenge, Dawson felt sure. Already a member of the elite Order of the Arrow, Fourage was ready to take that big step to earn the highest rank in scouting. A rank that would be a boon to him professionally through his life, as well as a major personal achievement.
“Scouting gives you so many skills,” Halverson said, “and it really prepares you for the future. Which opens doors.” Echoing Fourage, who said, scouting is “something fun where you learn useful skills and get to help people.”
As for why Dawson knew Cole was the scout for the job, there were a few reasons Dawson related. “He was the next scout who was eligible for an Eagle Scout project, and I knew if I gave this to him, he would see it through,” Dawson said. But there was also the memory of watching Fourage learn not to give up, even when things are really hard.
“We were getting our climbing merit badges,” Fourage explained, telling the story. “It was hot and I was really struggling. I don’t even think it was on the hardest wall, more like the medium one. But my fellow scouts wouldn’t let me quit.”
“When he got back to camp his eyes were wide,” Dawson said. “He’d made it to the top of that wall, and now he was on top of the world. All the quit was gone from him.”
Dawson expressed a lot of pride in Fourage and those fellow scouts who refused to let him quit that hot summer day. “Watching him grow from elementary, to middle, to high school and now as a young man… it’s so rewarding,” Dawson said. “I’ll have had 8 Eagle Scouts by the end of this year. And each one of them had the same goal. Which wasn’t really to be an Eagle Scout, but to become a good steward of the planet, of nature, and of their community.”
But raising the money to get it done, getting the government permissions, and seeing the whole thing through, Dawson knew, would be a lot of work. Fourage got right to it, and even when it turned out to be a struggle, he refused to quit. “He spent 60 hours just in logistics,” Dawson said.
Starting with the $2,000.00 from Halverson, Fourage got busy applying for grants and writing letters. He then raised $6,700 more in a grant from the Wright County Charitable Foundation. And then, at a recent signing ceremony at Eagle Grove City Hall, pulled in another $5,000 from the City of Eagle Grove.
“We’re super excited to assist in Eagle Grove scout projects. Especially a project like this, which improves a local park,” said City Administrator Bryce Davis. “We’re also excited that this is immortalizing the history of scouting in Eagle Grove.”
The project will see a limestone rock monument, similar to others in the city, erected at Fishpond Park. It will honor Schoonover, Eilerts, and all the Eagle Grove Eagle Scouts who came before it went up. Any funds left over will be earmarked for a future expansion of the project, to lay in a brick patio, and a sitting bench. Which will be the next local Eagle Scout project, for the next worthy young man to tackle.
Halverson gave Dawson and Fourage credit for that last detail. “They’re the ones who thought of adding all the Eagle Scouts from Eagle Grove,” Halverson said, “which I think really completes it.”
Email news@eaglegroveeagle.com with your tips, corrections, and suggestions.
