Let me tell you a little about her. I may never have this chance to brag about her again.
She is particular and orderly. Not long after she came home, she discovered the little Lego figurines. Instead of playing with the 15 or so characters, she took them apart. I found the little rows she’d made of their parts. A row of heads, a row of legs, a row of torsos. I’m not sure that all of those have ever been put back together. We still have a little bag of body parts.
Her manager at CFA leaned into my car window and said that the managers all love her because she is a hard worker and willing to do whatever they ask her to unlike some of the other employees.
Speaking of Chick-fil-A...She started working in the Carowinds store last summer before she took a break in August for her 11th, last and most complicated surgery for her cleft lip and palate repair. She started school 2 weeks later, her 18th birthday was 10 weeks away and she was a long way from finishing her eagle requirements.
I did not think she could do it.
But she did. With the help of Heisler and the other leaders, she did it. I’m happy to be wrong.
Let me tell you about her experience in Boy Scouts:
In 2019, she helped found one of the first female Boy Scout troops.
S he's spent four years with her long hair braided while she camped in the winter at 22F degree and hiked when it was nearly a 100.
She's learned to use the woods as her bathroom.
She's built fires, painted fences at GOALS
learned basic automotive maintenance and
worked with disabled adults,
cooked over a fire and on a portable stove after planning healthy menus for weekend camping trips
and learned a myriad of other skills.
She's learned and taught how to tie knots and first aid training which included CPR, broken bones, anaphylactic shock, and definitely do not ever use a tourniquet.
She's rappelled, shot firearms under close supervision, learned mediation techniques, and SMART goals.
She is a strong leader with exceptional organizational skills who describes her leadership style as high expectations coupled with friendliness.
She’d rather have people follow out of willingness than coercion.
In 2021, she was inducted into Order of the Arrow and is the secretary for the Skuyuka lodge.
Joy is also a young woman who enjoys skateboarding in one of the 20 hoodies she's collected over the years She, Gabby, Emma and Dylan went to a Goodwill together, bought fancy dresses and heels and proceeded to skateboard around the parking lot.
I don’t want you to think that Joy is perfect. She still doesn’t put dirty dishes in the dishwasher or gets the clothes on her floor washed or put away.
Even so, Joy, you have persevered when many other people would have claimed it was all too hard. You’ve worked 20 hours a week, camped with OA , carries out OA elections on several Monday nights, and kept your 4.7 GPA in school. You’ve earned your Eagle rank. I couldn’t be prouder. Even if Dylan got hers first. In fact, I tell people that I’m more excited about Eagle than school graduation. I expected you to graduate, but when you came home at 3, your joining Boy Scouts and making Eagle never crossed my mind. Congratulations!
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