Along the Scouting Trails: Two Troop 509 members achieve Eagle rank

Ashi Punj and Maxwell Williams, both La Cañada High School students, have earned the rank of Eagle Scout.

Punj, a junior at LCHS, recently completed an Eagle project on the high school campus.

He led a team of about 25 other scouts and family members to restore a bungalow on the football field. The project took two days.

Ashi started scouting with JPL Troop 509 in 2010. He has served various positions in the troop, including Patrol Guide and Senior Patrol Leader. He aspires to become a doctor and spent the last two summers at USC studying stem-cell research. Ashi is also a member of the 21st Century Institute in Medical Technology.

Williams, a senior at LCHS, joined JPL Troop 509 when he was in seventh grade.

For his Eagle Scout project, he worked on improving the Pasadena Humane Society’s offices. He organized and labeled cages and painted an outdoor corridor.

Maxwell has completed internships at La Cañada City Hall and the Matrix Group in Washington, D.C. He currently serves on the city’s Youth Council and volunteers at the Pasadena Humane Society. He hails from Los Gatos, where he was a Cub Scouts member. He became involved with Troop 509 after moving to La Cañada with his family. He has traveled to Joshua Tree, Philmont, New Mexico, and other destinations on scout trips.

-- Tiffany Kelly, tiffany.kelly@latimes.com

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