Winning Essay: Philmont Scholarship
Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico
Congratulations to Laura G. S. (Troop 2G in East Greenwich, RI) who won our Scholarship Essay Contest in May! Laura’s troop is heading to Philmont for camp this summer.
In the silence of the wilderness, I notice things I would otherwise miss. As my troop walks through the forest, a silence falls over us. We are focused on moving our arms and legs rather than our lips, we watch the ground beneath us rather than the nature around us, careful not to trip. It is as if we were afraid that the roots in the ground might suddenly rise and lead us to fall. We move forward, and the crunch of leaves beneath our feet settles into a steady rhythm, accompanied by the distant noises the birds make high above us.
Here, the quiet is not empty; it moves with the leaves in the trees and breathes with the animals hidden in the bushes. It is a different silence than at home, where the stillness is layered with the faint hum of an air conditioner. I enjoy moments like these, moments where words fall short of our mouths and we give our undivided attention to putting one foot in front of the other. We are focused, moving together, and needing nothing more to fill our ears than the sounds of nature. It is in these moments that I take time to think. At home I have no time to think. I fill my ears with music and my brain with the static of deadlines and noisy thoughts that refuse to sit still. At home, my mind is split a dozen different ways, each trying to keep track of something I said I would do. At home, my attention is a resource constantly being drained by the rush from one activity to the next, by a to-do list that never seems to end. But out here, the muddled noise settles. My mind calms, my thoughts no longer have to fight to be heard, they fall into line with my footsteps. Each crunch of a leaf acts as a reset button, clearing a bit of the mental clutter I’ve carried since Monday.
In a classroom, thinking is a structured task. I direct my focus towards a specific goal: a grade, the answer to a question, an essay. But in nature, thinking is aimless, and that is where its beauty lies. Free from the bindings of a rubric, my thoughts take on a life of their own. I think about a childhood book that I haven't read since I was seven. I try to imagine what the forest looked like hundreds of years ago, before this trail was even a thought. I wonder about the animals that cross this path when I am not here. I think of the distinct forest hum, a living silence.
There is comfort in the silence. A deep, quiet comfort that I rarely find anywhere else. It gives me a chance to think. And I notice that as we move further along the trail, I am observing my surroundings, no longer worried about tripping on roots and rocks. I enjoy the patterns that the sunlight makes on the forest floor, a shifting mosaic of gold and shadow as it passes through the leaves. There is a crispness in the way the air smells. I observe the texture on the bark of a nearby tree. I notice fluffy moss covering a stone as I pass it. The air is filled with the subtle hums of the woods. The soft taps of acorns falling from their trees. The quiet rhythmic creak of branches shifting in the wind. It is a world that doesn't need to be loud to be full. And it is here, in the living silence of the forest, where I have finally found a place where it is enough to simply exist.
The essay prompt from April/May 2026