Profiles in Leadership introduces our Eagle Scouts, offering a glimpse into their scouting experience and providing a little insight to our younger Scouts. In this, our first profile, we introduce Eagle Scout Kyle Houchin.
Kyle Houchin is a member of the Lightning Patrol and has been with Troop 581 since 2016. He is serving his second term as the troop’s Senior Patrol Leader and has previously served in many different leadership roles, including Patrol Leader, Quartermaster, Instructor and Troop Guide.
Kyle’s Eagle Scout service project assisted the Prince William County Animal Shelter. He led Scouts to clean, repair, and organize the many animal cages and crates stored in the shelter’s outdoor shelving units. His project also added slats to one of the shelving units to better organize some of the smaller containers. This project’s main goal was to help the shelter’s staff access the cages quickly without interruption, so they could get right to helping the animals. Kyle effectively planned and executed this project by providing excellent leadership to the 13 Scouts that came to help.
Since beginning with the troop, Kyle has been on many adventures. His favorite memory was his first time skiing at Timberline Ski Resort. “We skied down one of their best slopes, Salamander, countless times until we were practically about to pass out,” he said, adding that his favorite trip was his first high adventure trip to the Rocky Mountain High Adventure Base in Colorado, specifically summiting the 14,232-foot peak at Mount Shavano. “The view was amazing, and a couple of Marmots were trying to steal the cheese balls one leader carried to the top.” You can see a full review of this troop adventure in the post “Rocky Mountain High Adventure Base.”
Every Scout has a favorite piece of gear to take outdoors and Kyle’s is his Jetboil. For those that may not know, a Jetboil is a system for quickly boiling water and making simple meals. “I love my Jetboil!” he said. “It is satisfying and straightforward to use. It came especially handy during our cold weather November campouts when I would make hot chocolate and ramen with it. It boils water super quickly, and in the cold you don’t want to spend too much time focusing on things other than keeping yourself warm.”
Troop 581 encourages all Scouts to develop interests outside of scouting. Kyle’s favorite hobby is music. When not providing leadership to the troop, he can be found playing bass for the Park Valley Church youth and adult worship bands as well as messing around with the bass and guitar effects on his pedal board. “I like to dive deep into topics I’m interested in, such as music theory, to understand why a tune is pleasant to listen to,” he said.
Kyle is also accomplished in Taekwondo. Kyle started learning Taekwondo at US Tigers in Haymarket when he started Kindergarten in 2010 and stuck with it all the way to being awarded the rank of Junior Master (4th Degree Black Belt) in April 2020. Kyle was a member of the US Tigers Demonstration Team for many years, performing at Haymarket Day and many cultural events at area schools. Kyle didn’t really care for sparring, but loved performing board breaking routines, and his specialty was breaking 10 boards in a row using spinning kicks.
And, like most Scouts, he likes video games. His favorites include Enter the Gungeon, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and any local couch co-op game like Super Smash Bros.
Every Eagle Scout must plan for the future. Kyle’s plans for after graduation include furthering his education and continuing to pursue his loves of music and video games. “My current goal is to go to a credible school to study computer science and one day create video games,” he said. “I’m not too sure about this yet because of my heavy interest in music. I want to get involved with some sort-of church program such as Intervarsity or something else like that during college.”
Anyone that knows Kyle knows he continues to provide mentorship to the troop’s younger Scouts. He offers the following advice to our Scouts but it’s also good advice for the adults in the troop.
- Learn as many skills as you possibly can while it is still easy to learn them. One of which is being a self-starter.
- Learn how to motivate yourself to complete a task.
- Try to do as many patrol activities with your patrol as possible. This will help you create lasting friendships and help your patrol to last until you age out of Boy Scouts.
- Be proactive and take all the leadership opportunities possible. The only way to get better at something is to practice, and you can’t practice something if you don’t take the chance.
- Go on a high adventure trip as soon as you can! It’s a ton of fun and will give you many experiences that you will never forget.
Congratulations Kyle!