Troop 45 Eagle Scout earns highest recognition for achievement in scouting

WARWICK — Eagle Scout Jason Hranitz, the son of Marie Janiak and Paul Hranitz of Warwick, has just received the National Medal for Outdoor Achievement, the highest recognition that a Boy Scout can earn for exemplary achievement, experience and skill in multiple areas of outdoor endeavor.
Hranitz, a senior at Warwick Valley High School, is the first and only member of Warwick's Troop 45 to complete the requirements necessary to earn this special award.
In order for a youth to earn the National Medal for Outdoor Achievement, he must complete an extensive and daunting list of requirements ranging from backpacking and camping challenges and a 16-hour course in Wilderness First Aid to successfully completing a season on a council summer camp staff in an outdoor area.
Last year Hranitz, who had earned 38 Merit Badges, advanced to the Boy Scout rank of Eagle, an achievement shared by less than four percent of all scouts. And the number of scouts who earn the National Medal for Outdoor Achievement is much lower.
For his Eagle Project Hranitz choose to restore, cleanup and add an additional path to an overgrown and unused walking trail at the Warwick Valley Humane Society's animal shelter.
Several mini projects along the path also included repairing a bridge, restoring a seating bench, building two new seating benches and repairing and replanting the garden. He also repaired the sign that marked the trail.
Hranitz has yet to decide on what institution of higher education he will attend next fall but he plans to major in environmental science.
- Roger Gavan