After years of being dedicated to being the ultimate Boy Scout, 16-year old Noah Cornuet passed away tragically after collapsing during football practice on Aug. 6.
Noah was close to completing his final project that would earn him the top rank Eagle Scout status at the time of his passing.
The project, which involved improving the grounds of a church in his hometown of Lower Burrell, Pa., was sadly left unfinished and his Eagle Scout badge never earned.
In honor of Noah, his Troop 180 comrades got together this past weekend to finish Noah's final project in an effort to help him earn the Eagle Scout rank posthumously.
"I'd be as proud as possible," said Noah's father Raymond Cornuet in an interview.
"The troop we're in is just -- they're fantastic, it's a big family," he said.
"The boys are struggling as much as we are with the loss of Noah and so they had near-perfect attendance as far as coming out and working."
The 80 people in attendance on Saturday helped improve the grounds of the church by repairing and painting dilapidated buildings, painting new signs and finishing other general work around the church property.
Noah had previously placed mulch around the church grounds, laid two military tombstones in the church cemetery and improved a defunct softball field by removing an iron backstop. The money he received from recycling the 900 pounds of steel was used to fund the remainder of the project.
"Noah was a really good Scout," said his troop master Melvin Peck. "He was one of those Boy Scouts that loved being a Boy Scout. He was a Boy Scout, so he did a lot of preparation for this."
Earning an Eagle Scout rank requires the completion of a variety of merit badges representing multiple skills as well as several letters of recommendation from members of the community. The final project -- the church project that Noah was working on at the time of his passing -- is the last step towards earning the Eagle Scout badge.
Noah's posthumous Eagle Scout rank is dependent on a board review that is required to sign off on the achievement. The board is expected to meet today, Wednesday, to make the final decision.
Said Noah's father:
"The one thing that hurts us the most is that every parent can see when their child goes from being a child to a young man, and we could start to see how Noah had grown and was starting to develop into a fine young man and it's a shame the world will never know what we knew."
