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NATCHEZ — Three young men who recently completed all requirements to become Eagle Scouts in Troop 168 are soon to receive their Eagle Scout badges.

Hayden Price, Brent Warren, and Ryker Atkins have already completed their community projects and passed their interviews to become Eagle Scouts; they only need some key paperwork to be signed by Jackson to make it official, said Scoutmaster Ricky Warren. A ceremony for all of the new Eagle Scouts, plus the COVID-19-era Eagle Scouts who did not receive a ceremony, is being planned for a later date, he said.

Eagle Scout is the highest attainable rank in the Scouts of America program. To become Eagle Scouts, Scouts must first complete a community service project after completing all the merit badges in the lower ranks.

They must also complete their projects before they age out of the program at 18 years old.

Brent, the oldest of the three, completed his service project in December 2024, just days before his 18th birthday, Ricky Warren said.

Brent will be graduating from Cathedral High School in May.

One might say becoming an Eagle is in the blood for Brent. His dad, Brian Warren, the son of Scoutmaster Ricky Warren, received his Eagle Scout rank in 1993.

“I’m an Eagle, and now so is he,” Brian said proudly.

Brent said he has been “running around with the troop” since he was 3 years old, adding that becoming an Eagle Scout one day was a personal goal of his.

“It was more challenging than I would have thought, a lot more work. In the first year or two, it was more or less doing things that were fun, but then it got harder and harder. It all counted in the end.”

For his Eagle Scout project, he put up a flagpole at the Briarwood Church of Christ, he said.

“I did the flagpole with red and white rose bushes on each side. It was really just a matter of locating everything, buying the concrete for the slab. The company we were trying to order the roses from ran out, so we wound up placing an order for them online and had to wait a while for everything to come in,” Brent said.

“It feels good,” knowing that years from now he can drive by the church and look at the flagpole and say, “I did that,” he said.

For his project, Atkins also built a flagpole for the First Baptist Church in Natchez.

“We had to clean and repaint the curb and everything,” Atkins said, noting his dad, Leon Atkins, and grandmother, Edith Loy, supported him along the way.

“It was more challenging than I would have thought because I had to dedicate a whole bunch of my time to it. It usually takes about like five months to do your Eagle Scout project. I did it in about four months.”

Atkins is a Cathedral sophomore.

Price, also a sophomore at Cathedral, said his project — remodeling the Knights of Columbus building near St. Mary’s Basilica — took him a little over four months.

“It took a lot, a lot of will power and effort and pushing to get through with it all. I wanted to quit a couple of times — a lot of times, but I got through it eventually. And the merit badges, they’re all fun stuff. I just kept on working on grinding the merit badges and eventually got to where I am now.”

Price added that he owes a lot to his Scout troop and to his grandfather, Ron Brumfield, who helped him along the way to becoming an Eagle Scout.

About 1 percent of Scouts in most troops achieve Eagle Status, according to Scoutmaster Ricky Warren. But for Troop 168, becoming an Eagle Scout is something most members strive for.

“Used to be about 2 percent of every 100 got their Eagle. Now it’s one percent,” he said. “But for Troop 168, it’s about 98 percent. We’re proud. It takes a lot of work and a lot of pushing, making sure these guys and girls get it done.”

Ricky Warren expressed how proud he was of all of the Scouts on Tuesday, and in particular, the three newest Eagle Scouts, for their accomplishments. The badges awarded to all of the scouts on Tuesday cost around $500, he said.

“Scouting is expensive,” Warren said. “It’s expensive in one way and priceless in another.”

Later on

When asked what he would say to his peers to motivate them, Atkins said, “Just work as hard as you can even when you think it will never pay off, because it does.”