ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 10, 1997 TAG: 9704100079
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-4 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Have you heard?
SOURCE: JON CAWLEY
Arvonn Tully of Roanoke recently was presented with the Eagle award - the highest in the Boy Scouts. The award held special significance for members of Tully's family, who are longtime Scouts. He is the third generation, after his father Kenneth and grandfather John, to receive the coveted designation.
John Tully became an Eagle Scout in 1937, and Kenneth Tully in 1971. John's wife and Arvonn's grandmother, Jennie, was a Girl and Brownie Scout leader. Arvonn's mother, Diedre, is a Brownie and Girl Scout leader. Arvonn's sister Kira is a Brownie and another sister, Marel, is a Girl Scout. An uncle and two aunts have also been Scouts and leaders. The family has a cumulative total of 100 years in scouting.
Tully, a member of Troop 704 sponsored by Luther Memorial Lutheran Church in Blacksburg, joined the Cub Scouts in the second grade and has worked ever since to reach the station of Eagle Scout. For his last project he planned and built, with volunteer help, a nature trail through the arboretum at Nellie's Cave Park, Blacksburg.
The trail, which meanders through stands of trees indigenous to the New River Valley, took about 100 hours to complete and had to be handicapped accessible with no more than an 8 percent grade. "I made the path of least resistance to get to the trees," Tully said.
Being the third generation to receive the award didn't have a profound effect on Tully, he said. For the most part he did the work for himself. Encouragement from his father and grandfather, however, did help him finish the project before his 18th birthday - when he would have been ineligible to receive the Eagle award.
"I guess I would have felt kind of foolish if I hadn't finished," he said. "I spent the last 10 years working for it and it's been over half of my life."
Tully doesn't plan to end his involvement now that he has the Eagle badge. He has already become president of the High Adventure Explorer Post, a start-up group in Pittsburgh, where he is a freshman at Carnegie Mellon University.
"I expect to be an adult [scout] leader at some point. I don't doubt that," Tully said. "It's been such a part of me. You just don't stop."
In 1994 Tully was able to follow his father and grandfather's footsteps, literally, as he camped and hiked at the National Scout Philmont Reserve in northern New Mexico.
"Looking at the pictures later, Dad would say, 'That looks familiar.' We actually had pictures that were virtually identical. We were standing in the same places, taking virtually the same pictures. That was pretty cool."
Like the dusty trails and rugged mountains of New Mexico that stayed the same for the 30 years between Arvonn and Kenneth's trips, the scouting tradition hasn't changed much since John Tully's day in the khaki uniform.
"They [today's Scouts] have a wider challenge and more activities than we ever did with computers and cyberspace and other challenges that didn't exist then," John Tully said. "The scouting oath hasn't changed, though, and that's what it's supposed to be about."
John Tulley has no doubt that the family's future generations will continue to be scouts. "It's pretty well ingrained in everybody," he said. |MILITARY| SEAMAN RECRUIT YANO M. ANTERO CATLETT, son of Jane A. Bailey of Roanoke, recently completed Navy basic training at Recruit Training Command, Great Lakes, Ill. He is a 1989 graduate of Patrick Henry High School.
SGT. DAVID C. DILLOW, son of David R. and Peggy W. Dillow of Troutville, recently was promoted to his current rank while serving at the Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, N.C. He is a 1992 graduate of Lord Botetourt High School.
PFC. MICHAEL D. LEWIS, son of Joyce and Michael Lewis Sr. of Salem, recently was promoted to his current rank while serving at Marine Corps Detachment, Keesler Air Force Base, Biloxi, Miss. He is a 1994 graduate of Salem High School. |CAMPUS| LAUREN L. WILLSON, daughter of Steve and Ruth Willson of Roanoke, recently was inducted into Washington and Lee University's Gamma of Virginia Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. She is a 1994 graduate of Patrick Henry High School.
VIRGINIA TECH recently announced a list of Roanoke Valley students who earned graduate degrees at the university. Martha L. Brown, of Salem, a Roanoke College professor, earned a doctoral degree in psychology. Sharon Maiden Rothrock, of Salem, a teacher at William Byrd High School, earned a master's degree in . Ronald E. Honaker, son of Joyce S. Honaker of Roanoke, earned a master of science degree in industrial and systems engineering.
JACQUES D. SCOTT, son of Sandra N. Scott of Roanoke, recently received a master's degree in urban and environmental planning at the University of Virginia.
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Arvonn Tully followed the tradition set by his father,by CNBKenneth, and grandfather, John to become an Eagle Scout.