Pine-Richland siblings achieve Eagle Scout rank together

Scouting has become something of a family tradition for recent Eagle Scout siblings Mathew and Teagan Yurocko.

Achieving the rank of Eagle Scout is no small feat, and it’s rare for siblings to achieve it. It’s a relatively new opportunity for a brother and sister to celebrate earning Eagle together since the BSA only opened up the program to girls three years ago.

Mathew is a 2023 graduate of Pine-Richland High School and a member of Troop 344 at Salem United Methodist Church. Teagan just completed her freshman year at Pine-Richland High School and is a member of Troop 683 at American Legion Post 683 in Cabot.

A combined Eagle Court of Honor ceremony was recently held at Salem United Methodist Church to jointly celebrate Mathew and Teagan earning the Rank of Eagle in the Boy Scouts of America.

Mathew has been active in Scouts since second grade and has held many positions, including assistant senior patrol leader and patrol leader. Early in his Scouting journey, he set a very lofty goal of earning all 139 merit badges and getting his Eagle rank. He achieved both goals.

Two of his favorite activities as a scout were attending Philmont High Adventure Scout Ranch for a 12-day hike and scuba diving off the Florida Keys for a week on a live-aboard boat.

Mathew’s Eagle project consisted of building an outdoor two-tier book donation library at Altmyer Park and a ‘buddy’ bench to allow children to sit with their parents and read the books. He contacted friends and family for donations to help raise money for the project’s cost. He also held a book drive to collect books for the library.

“Project management was definitely a skill I picked up during this process. All the little pieces are relatively easy but looking at the big picture of having to coordinate meetings with different people and availability for work days was something I had to navigate,” Mathew said.

Mathew started work on his Eagle Scout project in the fall of 2022 and completed it in March. He worked through the winter to construct the workbench and the library. When the ground was no longer frozen, Mathew led his team to install the library and workbench on work days at the park.

“It felt really good. There was so much hard work throughout the years and I had something to show for it. I could finally say that I had earned my Eagle Scout rank. All of the hard work paid off,” Mathew said.

Mathew’s project manager for his Eagle Scout project was his dad, Rich Yurocko.

“It feels great to see him on the journey. Seeing how the program has evolved and how it’s taught him to be a good citizen and a good person, I don’t think people get enough credit for that,” Rich Yurocko said. “It’s so important to do the right thing for the right reasons, not for notoriety but for the principle of the thing.”

Mathew is very active in technology classes at school and enjoys using his 3D printer to build combat robots to compete against one another. He learned many of his skills from Scouts by earning different merit badges in engineering, programming, robotics, and composite materials.

He plans to study engineering in college and continue honing his skills.

“Mathew’s always willing to help other scouts. He’s one of those MacGyver-type scouts, which you can see from the amount of merit badges that he’s got,” said Mathew’s Scoutmaster, Mike Oklejewski. “He acts as a great role model for other scouts on their journeys. Mathew always found a way to solve any problem that we would have. He always comes up with different ideas and different ways to solve problems, whether that’s making sure that we have electricity at summer camp or finding a way to build a gateway for our competition. I couldn’t be happier to have had Mathew in our troop.”

Teagan, 15, was able to join BSA Scouts three years ago when they opened up the program to girls, and she quickly embraced the opportunity.

At 14, Teagan became the youngest female in BSA Scouts’ history to earn her Eagle Rank and complete all 139 Merit Badges. Since she loves the water, her favorite merit badges were scuba diving, swimming and lifesaving. Aviation was another favorite of hers because of the opportunity to fly in an airplane.

She completed her Eagle project by building an outdoor healing garden at the North Hills Art Center.

The North Hills Art Center received a grant from Regional Asset District to beautify their property, and Teagan used around $500 of that grant money to complete her project. Teagan began her project in March 2022 and completed it in June 2022.

Teagan planted different textured and fragrant flowers, trees and bushes on an overgrown hillside, sanding and painting the decorative handrail. She also rebuilt a stone wall, built bench seats, cleared seating areas and built an outdoor phone booth — complete with an old phone — so that folks grieving the loss of a loved one could ‘call’ them to help with their healing.

“I think the hardest part of the project was finding all the different plants for the garden. I had to make sure I was getting plants that people weren’t allergic to and ones that smelled fragrant that wouldn’t get eaten by deer,” Teagan said.

One of the rewarding things to come of the project for Tegan was hearing how people were using the phone booth.

“The project beneficiary, Diane Pontoriero, told me that a lot of her art students taking outdoor classes would wonder what the phone booth was for. When they realized what the purpose of the phone booth was they would call their people and some of them cried. It was really nice to hear and I was glad that I made that part of my project,” Teagan said.

Teagan was grateful to be able to go to her older brother for guidance through her Scouting journey.

“It was really helpful to have Mathew to look up to as I was rising through my ranks. If I didn’t understand a certain question in my guidebook, I could ask him and he would give me a general idea of what I could say. He also helped me at summer camp if I didn’t know where an activity was and walked with me,” Teagan said.

Even though she’s accomplished so much in BSA Scouts, Teagan isn’t done with her journey. She wants to be a mentor to younger scouts since she didn’t have one early on in the program.

“It was refreshing to be done so early because now I have the opportunity to give back to scouts. I’m excited to help my troop out, especially the younger girls,” Teagan said.

Teagan has also been in Girl Scouts since she was in kindergarten. She plans to complete her Gold Award in the future. Her mom, Amy Yurocko, has been one of her troop leaders since the beginning.

“It’s been such a great opportunity to be one of the co-leaders of her troop. Our current Girl Scout troop has five active members in it and they are all working towards their Gold Awards,” Amy Yurocko said. “When the opportunity came up for her to join the Boy Scouts, I was an assistant Scoutmaster. It was fun to see these young, eager female scouts in a different atmosphere.”

Tegan advises younger scouts to “believe in themselves, stick with it, and be patient. When things get hard, don’t give up because you’ll feel accomplished at the end of it.”

Aside from scouting, Tegan does plenty of other activities to keep busy. She’s a competitive high school athlete in cross country, track, and swimming. Recently, she qualified in her age group for the World’s Triathlon race. She said that she used the discipline she learned in these sports to help her stay focused on her BSA Scouting journey.

Although she’s only going into her sophomore year in high school, Teagan knows that she wants to work somewhere in the animal field when she goes to college.