Katelyn & Anna-Leigh Shuping Girl Scout Gold Award

Katelyn and Anna-Leigh Shuping, daughters of Jody and Kim Shuping of Granite Quarry, received their Girl Scout Gold Award at Wittenberg Lutheran Church on June 12, 2011.
The Gold Award is the highest honor in Girl Scouting which symbolizes outstanding accomplishments in the areas of leadership, community service, career planning and personal development demonstrated through the development of a special project. Joanne McManus, Scoutmaster of Troop 527, presented the Gold Awards.
Katelyn’s Gold Award project encouraged recycling at the Rowan County Relay for Life. Adopting the slogan, “Recycle for Life,” she organized a team to coordinate recycling at the event. With the help of volunteers, the recycling effort was a success with a total of 212 pounds of aluminum cans, 6 gallons of drink tabs and 205 pounds of plastic bottles. Katelyn encouraged recycling and assisted recycling at community and school events at East Rowan and Erwin Middle for the next six months. Drink tabs were given to local dialysis patients, and proceeds from aluminum cans were donated to Relay for Life.  
 Katelyn has been in scouting for 13 years, earning the Girl Scout Bronze and Silver Awards, and the God and Life Award. She is a 2011 graduate of East Rowan High School and a swim instructor and lifeguard at the East Rowan YMCA.
Anna-Leigh’s Gold Award project, “A Trip Through the Amazing Body,” provided the opportunity for more students to experience Health Camp held each summer at Rowan Regional Medical Center. She offered two free mini-camps at Wittenberg Lutheran Church which involved holding a pig’s heart and eyes, assembling skeletons, constructing marshmallow teeth, creating fake blood, learning CPR and the effects of drugs. She also taught a group of sixth graders at Erwin Middle School the Heimlich Maneuver, CPR and the effect of drinking with drunk goggle activities.
A rising junior at East Rowan High School, Anna-Leigh is in her 12th year of scouting and has also earned the Girl Scout Bronze and Silver Awards. She has also earned the God and Church and God and Life Award and the Venture Scout Bronze Award with Scoutmaster Frank Merrell of Troop 379.
Jill Foster, Anna-Leigh and Katelyn Shuping, Claire Steele and Charli Taylor were the five Girl Scouts in Rowan County to earn their Gold Award during the past year. They were honored at a reception on in May at Queens University in Charlotte by the Girl Scouts Hornets’ Nest Council and recognized as being the 5.4 percent of all Girl Scouts nationwide to earn the Gold Award.