TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) - When Michael and Alex Moore become Eagle Scouts, they’ll do so like they’ve done most other things in life - together.
The twin brothers will soon turn 18, and Alex said achieving the highest honor offered by the Boy Scouts of America as a pair is business as usual.
“Michael and I, we’ve done everything together. We’re in the same classes, we play the same sports, we joined the Scouts together and we advanced together,” Alex said. “It would have actually been unusual to do it separately.”
Right now, both brothers are wrapping up their Eagle Scout projects, which their Scoutmaster Bob Cron said helps everyone involved.
“The Eagle Scout projects are designed to help any organization other than the Boys Scouts,” Cron said. “It all has to be in the community — a religious institution, a school, a park — it has to benefit something other than the Scouts. The main goal is not just to give back, but to give the boys the opportunity to lead because it’s not their project to do, it’s their project to manage from conception to completion.”
Michael is working at the Rise School in Tuscaloosa, where he is building a shed in which the school will store gardening supplies and assembling binders that showcase various textiles so the children there can associate the feel of a material such as felt or sandpaper with its name. Alex is building and installing shelving in a storage unit at Catholic Social Services on James I. Harrison Parkway.
“It’s really a great feeling to do all this work and put time and energy into helping a good cause,” Alex said. “(The shelves) will be used by people who are helping the homeless and the sick and the poor, and that’s a good feeling.”
The twins attend Holy Spirit Catholic High School in Tuscaloosa. Michael said they joined the Boy Scouts at their mother’s insistence when they were 11 and were hooked after a year.
“We just loved it. The atmosphere and people of the Boy Scouts are great,” Michael said. “The experience of growing up together with other kids, it kind of becomes your second family.”
Alex said in seven years of Scouting, he and Michael have camped at all four of the Boy Scouts of America’s high adventure bases, hiking through the Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, attending the National Scout Jamboree in West Virginia and more.
Cron said his troop depends on its independence and leadership from its Scouts and that the twins have also grown to embody those principles.
“Alex and Michael are both exceptional kids, they’re two of the best Scouts that I’ve ever had the opportunity to work with,” Cron said. “We’ve got 35 boys in our troop, and 33 of them really look up to these two.”
The twins have one more year at Holy Spirit before they graduate and take their next steps in life. Alex said he knows he wants to go to college and pursue a degree but isn’t sure what he’ll focus on. Michael said he wants to study kinesiology somewhere in Alabama but hasn’t decided where he hopes to do so.
Their futures may be uncertain, but Michael and Alex Moore become Eagle Scouts and navigate their senior year of high schools, one thing seems sure — they’ll do it together.
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Information from: The Tuscaloosa News, https://www.tuscaloosanews.com
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