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Write an essay in which you tell us about someone who has made an impact on your life and explain how and why this person is important to you.
I woke up in my soaking wet tent to the sound of amazed Boy Scouts. All around me I could hear, “Get out of your tent and look at this!” and, “Wow, that’s amazing!” I opened up my tent and saw water surrounding our campsite. All of the land around us had been flooded except for the small hilltop we were standing on. Everyone was thanking God for the life saving decision our scoutmaster had made the night before.
Earlier that weekend, after a long day of canoeing in the rain on a campout at Village Creek, we came across a large sandy bank with plenty of room for all of our Boy Scout troop’s tents, and everyone thought we had found the perfect spot to park the canoes and set up our campsite. Meanwhile, Mr. David, our Scout Master was rowing across the river. He was only gone for a short time and when he returned, he suggested that we move to a spot across the river to set up our campsite. He realized that we would be in a bad position if the rain caused the river to flood, so we trusted his instincts. As everyone began rowing across the river, it started to rain harder. I don’t think I will ever see it rain as hard as it did at that moment. We set up our campsite on a hill about a hundred yards from the river and tried to fall asleep in our soaked tents.
The next morning dawned with the sun gleaming through every raindrop on our tents. As we stepped out of our tents, we saw that the river was now at the edge of our campsite. If Mr. David hadn’t thought ahead, as a boy scout should, we would have been in serious trouble.
We can count on Mr. David to think this way on every campout. This is one of his many traits that I admire and hope to acquire. Mr. David, along with my involvement in Boy Scouts, has been on of the most influential and important parts of my life. I began scouting as a Cub Scout in first grade, and I later moved into Boy Scouts in 2007. I have been in Boy Scouts ever since then. I have earned the Boy Scouts of America’s highest Scouting rank of Eagle. I am very proud of being able to reach this goal, and owe much of my success to Mr. David. He is a tireless supporter of scouting and continues to lead our troop even though both his sons left for college years ago.
One way Mr. David impacted my life is the way I make regular use of what he has taught me about working as a team with my group members in projects at school and volunteer activities. For example, on my most recent volunteer event for Habitat For Humanity, a group of twenty students from my high school were asked to complete many tasks involved with building a house. From the way it looked at the start, nobody wanted to split up into groups for the different tasks and work separately from everyone else. I knew that if all twenty of us tried to shingle a roof at the same time, not much progress would be made, so I suggested that certain people work on different tasks that they would be most effective at. I feel that we contributed a lot more to the construction of that house that day as organized groups than we would have as one large team.
Another trait of Mr. David that I try to display is his friendliness towards everyone. He talks to everyone as if they have always been best friends. He seems to view everyone with the same great amount of positive feelings and respect, no matter what kind of relationship he shares with them or how he or she has treated him or others the past. I try to apply this to everybody I meet, including my friends, classmates, leaders, and other scouts. I’m sure that anybody who knows me would say that I have never given anyone a reason to dislike me.
I have been in many situations where it would be easy to follow the crowd, however, I take great pride in being a leader rather that a follower and not conforming to the standard expectations, I owe this confidence to Mr. David. I look forward to see how these lessons will apply to my future life. I see myself using these skills in my experiences as a friend, husband, father, professional, and perhaps a future scout leader.
