Eagle Scout honors for Brayden Sego

Red Oak Scouts Troop 86 pack member Brayden Sego is celebrating his distinction of being named an Eagle Scout.
Sego participated in an Eagle Rank ceremony at the Red Oak Elks Lodge on June 11. Sego is a long-time Scout, joining as soon as he was able to in the first grade.
“I started with the Cub Scouts, and I would have joined even earlier if I could have,” said Sego.
Ironically, Sego said it was a simple joke that led to his long-term participation with the Scouts.
“When I was in the first grade, the recruiter asked us to put a flyer for the Scouts in their fridge that was shaped like a tent. That way, if someone opened the fridge and saw it, they’d ask what it was, and it was a flyer that told everything about the Scouts. Being me, I wasn’t worried about all the stuff he was saying, I was looking forward to playing a joke on my grandpa, Tom Solt,” advised Sego. “So I put it in the fridge, and one day my grandpa found it and asked what it was doing in there. It was one of my best moments ever.”
That simple joke ended up kick-starting the entirety of his career and accomplishments with the Scouts.
“When I first started, I didn’t know about the Eagle Scout rank or anything that it entailed. I was just looking to play a joke on my grandpa and now here I am an Eagle Scout,” commented Sego.
While Sego wanted to try for the Eagle rank at an earlier age, he said things were slowed down by the lack of members to create a necessary Board of Review.
“You need at least three adults that aren’t related to you or your Scout Master to do the Board of Review, and we didn’t have that. One of them one my grandpa, one was my scoutmaster, and the third was the parent of someone else. We only had one person that could do the Board of Review. I ended up stuck at First Class for awhile, and remained there for most of my journey,” stated Sego. “Once we started getting more members, and more parents were involved, I was finally able to get started. I only started truly pushing for the Eagle Scout rank about a year before my birthday. So I didn’t have too long, but we were able to get things done.”
Sego reached the rank of Scout in 2018, Tenderfoot in 2018, Second Class in 2019, and First Class in 2020. After that, it wasn’t until 2022 when Sego received his Star and Life rank, and received his Eagle Scout rank towards the end of 2023.
As part of the Eagle Scout process, Sego had to choose a special project, which Sego credits his grandpa for helping him choose.
“We were thinking of ideas, and my grandpa mentioned that a container at the Montgomery County Shooting Sports Club range needed painting. I immediately thought that would be a good idea. Representatives of the club have helped us with shooting sports and have hosted merit badge classes there and have been very helpful to me in particular throughout my journey. I felt it was a great way to give back to them and to the community. The container helps protect everything that’s stored in it from heat damage, and with the new paint it looks better. We painted it like a barn. The trim is white and the rest of it is red.”
To start the project, Sego was required to get approval, which he secured as his grandpa was good friends with the president of the gun club. He also had to seek approval from the scoutmaster in charge of Eagle projects. All told, the project took about a weekend to complete, and the paint was obtained with a discount from local hardware stores.
Sego then participated in a Board of Review at a church in Council Bluffs, and he passed. While he was a little nervous, Sego said there were a number of events that occurred before the review that helped shape his meeting with Board of Review members.
“Before I could do the Board of Review and get acknowledged for the project, my grandpa passed away. Before that, he had been there to take me to everything Scout related, and he basically had been my dad. Being able to get Eagle meant so much to me. One of the questions they asked me during my review was who was my hero, and based on my answers to previous questions, they pretty much had my answer, which was my grandpa,” Sego said. “With that portion of everything being there, it made it easier for me to walk into the review and know I was going to do good. I knew I had my grandpa watching over me, and I knew with everything that had happened, I just felt like nothing else could go wrong in that moment. I got the Eagle rank after my first review.”
After his review, Sego waited in the hallway for a few moments before he was brought in and he got the answer he wanted.
“After I got brought back in, I was asked what special day it was today, and the answer from them was that this was the day I got Eagle. I thought that was really cool.”
It’s been many years since an Eagle Rank ceremony has taken place in Red Oak, and being able to be one of the Scout members to bring it back was a good feeling.
“When I got in, there weren’t that many Scouts in the troop and it felt like things were coming to an end. When I got in, I helped people get back on their feet and we made it work. Now we have a giant troop of members. It almost feels like a thank you for all the work my grandpa and I have put in, and that’s nice to see,” Sego commented.
While Sego achieved his rank a short time before Jackson Krueger, Sego said he held off on his Eagle rank ceremony for an important reason.
“The ceremony was held on my grandpa’s birthday. He was pretty much my rock. Having the ceremony on that day made it a way to celebrate him, and celebrate my Eagle rank at the same time. Now every time his birthday comes around, it gives me something good to remember. With him being gone, it will be hard still, but this will help make it better,” Sego said.
If he had the choice to do everything over again, Sego said it would be interesting to go through the path again.
“I wouldn’t want a different outcome, as I think the way everything turned out again was really good, but being able to take the journey again, and experience all of the things for the first time again would really be nice,” advised Sego.
If he could change one requirement for achieving the rank of Eagle, Sego said he’d change the amount of people required for a board of review.
“If it were less people, I could have done this a lot sooner and I wouldn’t have been stressing about it quite so much,” said Sego.
Achieving the rank of Eagle requires Sego to give back more than Scouting has given him. Sego described his plans and how he will fulfill that charge.
“I definitely want to keep going in the community and giving to others, and I want to strive to make the world a better place. That starts with small things, like paying Taps at the cemetery for the Court of Honor. That’s a real way to help and show support to others, and it’s just a small portion of what I could do,” explained Sego. “There’s a wide extent of things I can do like holding doors open for people, and spreading light in a world full of darkness.”
While getting Eagle is the hard part, being Eagle is the reward for doing the hard part.
“I’ve done the service project and spent many years working to get Eagle, which shows the effort I have put in. Now that I’ve achieved the rank, that’s my reward,” commented Sego.
Of all the merit badges he’s earned. Sego believes the one that gave him the most information that will be helpful in his later life is first aid. The most meaningful was bugling or one of the shooting sports badges.
“The reason behind that is because all of the shooting sports badges my grandpa helped me with for the most part, and he helped me with the bugling one as well. That allowed me to get a lot better with the trumpet and I learned some bugle calls and things that got me started with playing Taps,” stated Sego.
Sego urged any kids on the fence about joining the Scouts to pick the path that is the best for them.
“Scouting isn’t for everybody, but I haven’t heard from anyone who joined that they regretted it. Scouting is a version of the military, there’s a chain of command, and a ranking system. All the merit badges you get once you get to Eagle gives you a rank up in the military. Once you pass basic training, you get a rank up for having the Eagle rank. The merit badges are a small portion of what you are learning in the military, almost like a pre-test.”
Sego said he plans to go in the military, so Scouting has given him special training in leadership and communication skills.
“The communication skills allow me to work with other people no matter what, and thanks to my leadership training in scouts, I believe I’ll be good at helping others no matter what, as well as team building and teamwork. Every tool I need, I have. There’s room for improvement no matter what, and I’m definitely not the best, but I think I have a good start and with how much time I’ve put into leadership, I definitely think I’ll be a good addition to what the world has next for me,” Sego stated.
Sego credits all the people that have helped him along the journey no matter what. While his Grandpa Tom is definitely the biggest help, everyone has been a benefit for him.
To describe his entire Scouting experience in one word, Sego said the word he would choose is amazing.
“There’s so much that I learned and so much that I did. I don’t think I would have had it any other way. There were some downfalls to everything, and some things that made me worry I wouldn’t make Eagle, but I got there. I’ll have Eagle no matter what. Once an Eagle, always an Eagle.”