Mary Beth Koeth
Missed Milestones | Nathaniel Lambert
Nathaniel Lambert, 18, Imagine International Academy of North Texas. Missed Milestones. May 2020. For his Eagle Scout project, Nathaniel Lambert built flower beds for a local elementary school. He couldn’t wait to gather with fellow scouts for his court of honor, the official ceremony where he would receive his Eagle Scout neckerchief and badge. But, due to COVID-19, the court of honor was cancelled. “I ended up going in front of the board and presented everything and they were like, Congrats, you’re done now,” he says. “I didn’t get the formal stuff. It’s upsetting. The badge is the thing that people recognize.”
In addition to his court of honor, Lambert will be missing out on prom, graduation, and an art exhibit scheduled at the McKinney Performing Arts Center, where was going to showcase his fashion design. (For prom, Lambert was planning on designing his own suit.) His International Baccalaureate (IB) exams were cancelled, too. “A lot of kids are probably like, Ugh, exams,” Lambert says. “But I was looking forward to that because that’s the thing that all the IB kids talk about internationally: ‘Oh, I went through the struggles of the exams.’” Next year, he plans to attend Baylor University to study entrepreneurship with a minor in fashion and apparel merchandising. Though he’s disappointed about all the missed experiences of his senior year, he’s still proud of the hard work that got him to the milestones, especially as an Eagle Scout. “I feel cheesy saying it, but I learned a lot going through it. I learned a lot more than survival skills.”
Texas Monthly
