Youths Named Eagle Scouts

Three local youths were formally conferred the rank of Eagle Scout during a Court of Honor ceremony on Oct. 24 at St. George’s Episcopal Church attended by family, friends and troop members.

Honorees included Charles Robert Wulke, Phillip W. Liu and Jeffrey Show Tran, all from Troop 502.

Charles Wulke

Wulke has been active in Scouting since second grade, having been in a cub scout den at St. Bede the Venerable School. He then joined Troop 502 where he has been very active for the past four years. He has attended a number of different scout camps, including working this past summer at Camp Eaton, a local scout camp in the Angeles National Forest. In the summer of 2003, he planned and conducted his eagle project, which consisted of moving over 4,000 books and setting up the school library at the recently completed new educational center at St. Bede School. He attained the rank of Eagle Scout in the late spring of 2004, just days before his 15th birthday, but waited until this past weekend to have his formal Eagle Court of Honor.

“I have had many exciting adventures with my friends throughout my four years in Troop 502,” Wulke said. “I have slept out under the stars with only a handmade shelter to cover me for the Wilderness Survival merit badge, to sleeping in a 100- year-old, 98-foot Baltic sailing ship known as the Argus.”

Wulke is the third of five children of Gordon and Belinda Wulke. The entire family is very active in the local scouting scene, with two daughters each having earned their Gold Award in Girl Scouts (the equivalent to the Eagle rank), and two younger children each active participants in their respective troops/packs.

Phillip Liu

At La Cañada United Methodist Children’s Center, Phillip W. Liu carried out his Eagle Scout project. The large storage sheds many contents were cleaned, organized and stored in labeled containers.

Liu and his assistants constructed and painted a 15-foot planter and filled it with topsoil. The sand area between the center’s classroom and cement walkway was leveled, compacted and covered with safety mats to create a pathway.

Liu has earned 35 merit badges. He said he is grateful for the support and guidance from his family, friends, fellow Scouts and advisors in his achievement of the Eagle rank.

Jeffrey Tran

Jeffrey Tran is the oldest son out of seven children born to Drs. Vinh Tran and Joyce Show. He started out as a cub scout in St. Bede’s Pack 507 in second grade and went all the way through Webelos earning his Arrow of Light with leaders Diana Barnes and Cathy Schwartz.

Tran then joined St. George’s Boy Scout Troop 502 under the guidance of Scoutmaster Darold Pieper and then Scoutmaster Gordon Wulke. He served as a patrol leader for a year and a den chief for two and half years, including two years for his little brother Joseph’s cub scout troop.

Tran earned merit badges ranging from dealing with personal finance and fitness to wilderness survival, lifesaving, camping, climbing, and cycling, finally earning entry into the Order of the Arrow. He probably learned the most though from his Eagle project. Tran, who has a black belt in karate from the International Karate Association, trained a group of his fellow scouts and friends to help him teach a series of karate classes to a group of children on the autism spectrum at Pasadena Child Development Associates during the summer of 2003.

Tran, who has a little brother on the spectrum, said, “It was really encouraging to see how much the kids could learn and how enthusiastic they were.”

Tran and some of the friends who helped out on his Eagle project taught another series of classes this summer, and plan to continue to do so every year as long as they keep getting invited back.

He keeps a busy schedule as a sophomore at La Cañada High School, participating in the confirmation program at St. Bede Church, as a violinist in the La Cañada High School Chamber Orchestra and Quartet and the Olympia Philharmonic.

“Scouting opened the door to opportunities to learn things that I would never have been able to otherwise, like how to be a sailor on the Argus and being a teacher,” Tran said “That (the latter) taught me that you need to have patience, patience and more patience.”