Norby will earn Eagle Scout rank Saturday

Posted on Wednesday, April 28, 2010

By ELISA SAND, Staff Reporter

Dan Norby knows he's probably gotten more out of Boy Scouts than he'll ever be able to give back.

At 18, Norby will be honored at a Court of Honor ceremony and receive his Eagle Scout rank on Saturday at 2 p.m. in the Trinity Lutheran Church fellowship hall.

Norby is a senior at Madison High School and the son of Todd and Lori Norby of Madison. He is a member of Troop 5.

Norby originally joined as a Cub Scout and has gone through the ranks with seven other boys who have all received Eagle ranks.

"Being involved with the same seven guys kept us all going and pushing each other," Norby said. "The trips weren't the highlight for us -- it was just another bonus. I couldn't think of seven better guys to go on the trips with."

As a scout, Norby said, he's participated in four hiking trips in the Colorado mountains, two trips to Hawaii and canoing at Boundary Waters.

"The best trip ever was the Boundary Waters," he said. There were eight scouts canoing around but all depending on each other.

"It was the true definition of life," he said.

To receive the rank of Eagle, a scout must earn a specific number of merit badges, show leadership within his troop and complete an Eagle Scout project.

For his project, Norby completed campground games for the campground hosts at Lake Herman State Park and Walker's Point.

"They were in rough shape," he said, indicating that the game construction took longer than expected. The project was started in November 2007 and was just completed in December 2009.

Games constructed included a bean bag toss game, a washer toss game (tossing tractor washers onto a board with holes in it) and a Pongo (golf ball) game.

"As an Eagle Scout, there's always a question of what you're going to give back," Norby said. "I don't know that I can give back what I've gotten out of it."

This summer, however, Norby plans to continue his involvement in scouts as a leader and attend a hiking trip in Colorado.

When asked if there's anything specific that sticks out in his mind about scouting, Norby said that there isn't just one thing.

"There's so many things that conglomerate into one," he said.

What Norby can say, however, is that scouting has taught him that there are no limits to what he can accomplish.

"There's nothing really that's stopping me from going as far as I can," Norby said. It taught him to go after what he wants to do.

"You've got to go get it," he said. "You can't just wait for it to happen."

Last year, Norby had made his decision about college, so he applied to Mitchell Technical Institute, ensuring him a spot in the nine-month power line program that he knew was popular. He will begin that program this fall in Mitchell.

©Madison Daily Leader 2010