OH, HOW I LOVE & ADORE MADDIE! SHE IS MY "GRANDSTUDENT!" HER MOM, JESSICA EVANS, WAS IN MY 5TH CLASS. I ALSO TAUGHT MADDIE'S AUNT JODI, UNCLE JONNY, HER SISTER ELIZABETH, AND BROTHER, THOMAS. MADDIE IS THE OLDEST OF SEVEN CHILDREN! WHEN MADDIE WAS IN 5TH GRADE, SHE LOOKED A LOT LIKE HER MOM DID IN 5TH GRADE, BUT A TINIER VERSION. SOOO SWEET, AND KIND, AND LAID BACK. I DON'T KNOW THEIR STORY, BUT MADDIE & KARL MET ON THEIR MISSION IN KANSAS! SHE WAS FROM ALPINE. HE WAS FROM LINDON.
MADDIE WAS ALSO SOOOO ARTISTIC! QUITE THE ORIGINAL INVITES:
MARRIED AT THE MANTI TEMPLE ON AUGUST 11.
I TAUGHT MADDIE, ELIZABETH (2ND FROM RIGHT), AND THOMAS (WHITE SHIRT)
SO, WHEN I HEADED BACK TO MY CAR AFTER THE RECEPTION, I SAW THIS ITTY BITTY CAR PARKED BEHIND ME! LOOKS LIKE MY CAR GAVE BIRTH TO A BABY CAR!
WHEN I LOOKED IN MY REAR VIEW MIRROR, YOU COULDN'T EVEN SEE IT!
I also taught David's uncle, Brian, and his aunt, Shelly.
CONGRATS, DAVID!!!
David's grandma, Carol, is the one that got me into merit badge counseling . . .
Citizenship in the Nation and Citizenship in the World.
I specifically remember attending his dad's wedding reception. It was held at the Joseph Smith Building. While driving up to Salt Lake, it was being reported that Princess Diana had been in a car crash, and had broken her arm.
The award David received was for saving 2 people's lives! This award has only been given 277 times in 114 years! 277 times out of 210 MILLION Boy Scouts!!!
David is currently a 5th grader!
Bloomfield Hills boy receives Boy Scouts’ highest honor for saving lives
David Williams, 10, of Bloomfield Hills, with his Honor Medal
with Crossed Palms awarded to him by the Boy Scouts after saving two
friends’ lives last year by pulling them out of a lake, pictured Tuesday
February 25, 2014. He is only one of 277 Scouts ever to receive the
award in the 104-year-history of the Scouts. (Vaughn Gurganian-The
Oakland Press)
David Williams, 10, (left) of Bloomfield Hills, with
friend Addy Hunter, 10, who David pulled from a lake along with her
little brother last year, earning him the Honor Medal with Crossed Palms
awarded to him by the Boy Scouts, pictured Tuesday February 25, 2014.
He is only one of 277 scouts ever to receive the award in the
104-year-history of the Scouts. (Vaughn Gurganian-The Oakland Press)
David Williams was playing outdoors last March near a dock on
Wing Lake in Bloomfield Hills when he called out to his 9-year-old
playmate, Addy Hunter.
“She didn’t answer,” said David, who also was 9 at the time.
That’s when David, a Cub Scout with Pack 1046, went looking for
her and her 3-year-old brother, Hayden, and found they both had fallen
through the lake’s ice. Hayden was bobbing up and down in the water
about five feet from Addy. David helped Addy out and grabbed Hayden from
the frigid water.
Word got to the Boy Scouts of America and recently they presented
David with the organization’s highest award, the Honor Medal with
Crossed Palms, for saving a life or lives at extreme risk to self.
Denver Laabs, Boy Scouts program team leader with Great Lakes
Field Service Council, Michigan Crossroads Council, shared that there
have been 210 million scouts since organization started in 1910.
“Only 277 scouts have won the Honor Medal,” said Laabs.
David, now 10, receiving the award was “fantastic for David and his family,” said Laabs.
The award was presented to David, son of Mary and Mark Williams, Feb. 18 at the Eagle Scout and Silver Award Recognition Dinner.
The goal on the ice rescue day, March 13, 2013, was to build a
snow fort, said David, an active dark-haired boy. He, Addy and Hayden
had been driven to the lake by Addy and Hayden’s mother, Aubree. A
exchange student was also with the family.
As Aubree was helping another son with his winter clothes, the three older children headed down to the lake.
The winter of 2013 had been alternately warm and cold, said Mary Williams, which affected the lake ice.
When Addy fell in, she said, “I didn’t know I was in the water.” The lake water was so cold, “it felt warm,” said Addy, now 10.
The Hunter children fell into an area of Wing Lake where the water dropped off.
When David spotted Hayden, the water was over Hayden’s head.
David grabbed Hayden’s hands and tugged. “He was frozen,” said David.
Because his winter clothes were water-logged, Hayden was “super-heavy,” said David.
The exchange student staying with the Williams family hurried and
took Hayden from David. After Addy was helped out, she was able to walk
on her own.
Hayden, recalled his mother, was “as pale as a ghost. He was shivering so much he couldn’t speak.”
Aubree, a nurse, drove everyone back to the Williams’ home, and
got her son into a warm bath, where, she said, “he warmed up quickly.”
Boy Scout officials researched the incident before approving the special award.
The family learned he would receive the medal last September.
David worried a bit about the Feb. 18 dinner, thinking he might have to
speak before a crowd, “but it was actually really fun,” he said.
He met Gov. Rick Snyder at the event. “He was so nice,” said David.
The scout wants to be a vascular surgeon when he grows up, he said, “like my grandpa.”
David, now a fifth grader at Bloomfield Hills Middle School, shrugs off the attention he has received.
David, said Mary, reminds her of the scout motto, “He tries to do his best.”
In both situations he “thought quickly and was thinking of others.”
Both mothers think about how the day could have turned out.
“It was a relief nothing horrible happened,” said Hunter.
Mary Williams said, “We had a happy ending.”
A "grandstudent" is the child of a former student of mine. I taught Emily's dad, David in 1981-1982. I taught Lauren's dad, Jordan, in 1982-1983. Surely I'm not that old!!!
