Elected officials, business owners and community leaders gathered at Faith Baptist Church Thursday morning to celebrate the Choctaw Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America and help raise funds to support local scouting efforts as the 16th annual Eagle Club Recognition Breakfast got underway.

The breakfast, which kicks off the Friends of Scouting’s fundraising season, serves to both raise money for the Choctaw Area Council and provide supporters with an update on scouting activities over the past year. Lee Thaggard, who serves as board president for the council, said the fundraising campaign is crucial to the success of local scouting, with around $280,000, or 44% of the organization’s annual budget, coming from the community.

Scout Executive and CEO James Hulgan said a multitude of activities and events have taken place in scouting over the past year, including the annual Pinewood Derby, a Cub Scout Family Camp, State Games of Mississippi’s archery and sporting clays competitions and more. Camp Binachi has also hosted several other councils’ scouting events, reaching far beyond the Choctaw Area Council’s five county range.

“I am filled with much pride in the achievements we have accomplished as a council,” he said. “We’ve been through a lot of things. In my heart, I feel our council is doing great things.”

Choctaw Area Council scouts also gave back to the community over the past year, Hulgan said, with more than 12,000 service hours logged. The time, he said, represents approximately $120,000 in labor costs saved because of scouts’ service.

“Looking forward, I want to say that our scouting future is bright, and I am honored to be here and participate in what we’re doing here in eastern Mississippi and western Alabama to get more scouts engaged in scouting,” he said.

The guest speaker for Thursday’s breakfast was former Major League Baseball player Ryan Klesko, who shared how the lessons and skills learned through the Boy Scouts helped him throughout his athletic career.

Klesko, who grew up in California, said his father was injured working in the oil fields when he was around 12 years old, and it was his mother who helped him and encouraged him to pursue baseball. His mother, he said, built a pitcher’s mound in the back yard and acted as catcher as he honed his skills.

“She threw on the catcher’s gear when I was throwing up to about 88 miles per hour,” he said. “And the reason she built the pitching mound, or the pitching mound and the net, was because I hit her with a fast ball and she was out of work for five days, and we couldn’t afford that.”

Scouting, Klesko said, also played a large role in his upbringing by providing the paternal support he needed. An avid outdoorsman, he said the survival skills learned while scouting have come in handy on several occasions, but the morals, values and life lessons of scouting have proven invaluable.

Through scouting, he said, he learned respect, determination, teamwork, accountability and other values that contribute to success in baseball and in daily life.

“It was just a good upbringing,” he said.

One particular lesson learned in both scouting and baseball is failure, Klesko said. In baseball, he said, failure is almost guaranteed.

Good hitters, he said, have a batting average of above .300, meaning they hit the ball about 30% of the time. Looking at it the other way, he said, is that the players who are considered good at hitting are going to miss 70% of the time.

Going a week or more without hitting a single ball is discouraging, Klesko said, but it happens, and there is nothing to do about it but accept that failure is a part of the process and persevere.

“Life’s going to beat you up, and you’ve got to be able to take it,” he said. “Baseball taught me that. Boy Scouts taught me that.”

To learn more about the Choctaw Area Council, find a local scouting troop or ways to support scouting, visit cacbsa.org.