Scouting is helping others

Kris Hill

Saturday, Sept. 30, 2000 | 9:05 a.m.

Cheryl Paulsen listened intently as an apologetic coroner spoke to her on the phone one Friday afternoon in August.

Medical examiners had been unable to figure out the cause of her 17-year-old son's death on May 23, he said. Jeff, who had been taking muscle relaxants for an injury in a car accident, died in his van after going to the vehicle to rest during his second-period class at Clark High School.

Choking was eliminated right away, as was suffocation in the stuffy van. Toxicology tests ruled out a drug overdose.

The only other possibility, the coroner said, was cardiac arrhythmia, which medical references describe as a chaotic heartbeat.

Paulsen recalled that she had been diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat in December, and she remembered that her mother and sister both have heart conditions.

It became clear that a bad heart killed her youngest child. "I think I came to the conclusion before (the coroner) did," she said.

She went to her day planner, where she recorded all of her life's important events -- the day her firstborn was killed at age 1 in an accident at a rodeo, the day her husband of 29 years died while cleaning a gun. She made some notes.

This was the day she felt relief, the day she knew her fifth child hadn't forsaken his common sense.

"That made better sense to me," Paulsen said. Her son, who was working toward the rank of Eagle Scout, wasn't prone to carelessness. "One of his strengths was that he was practical.

"A lot of people thought drugs were involved."

Adults who worked with Jeff knew better. Scout leaders said he was more concerned about helping other boys than he was about himself.

"It vindicated the way he lived his life," Greg Hansen, one of Jeff's Scout leaders, said. He was elated to find out he was right about Jeff.

It was fitting that when leaders realized Jeff's Eagle project wasn't finished that the boys he had helped decided to help him earn the highest rank a Scout can attain.

Hansen met Jeff when the boy entered Webelos as a 10-year-old. "In three months Jeff earned 14 of the Webelos awards," which earned him the Arrow of Light award he needed to become a Boy Scout the next year, Hansen said. "Then (Jeff) turned around and helped another boy get six awards."

When he was 13, Jeff helped three younger boys who were having trouble meeting the requirements for Tenderfoot -- the first rank a Boy Scout can earn. In one weeklong campout, he helped them finish the requirements, advance to the next rank and encouraged each to earn five more badges.

One of those boys was Joe Meservy. After Jeff died, Joe asked how he could help Jeff get his Eagle award.

The project had to be done by someone who had already earned the rank of Eagle. Joe made Eagle last March, just before his 14th birthday.

"I always really looked up to Jeff," Joe said, "and I just wanted to help him out."

He went to Dan Orr, the man in charge of advancement for the Las Vegas area. Orr started the paperwork to get the blessing of the Boulder Dam Area Council.

Jeff had already earned the badges and met the leadership requirements. He had worked on his plan to fix up the horse corral at Spring Mountain Ranch. The physical labor and written report on the project were all that remained.

It wasn't Jeff's fault that he hadn't gotten the project done, Joe said. Jeff's Eagle adviser and Joe's dad, Dennis, an accountant, had been too busy during tax season to help Jeff finish the work.

Joe was determined to do the project, but he had only one worry: that the Boy Scouts wouldn't count his work as fulfilling the requirements and deny Jeff his Eagle.

Only two posthumous applications had ever been considered in Nevada, and both boys had completed the projects before they died. One was denied the rank.

"We were worried that they wouldn't let it pass, especially at the national level," Joe said.

Still, Joe proceeded. He was able to get all of the project information from Jeff's computer and didn't have any trouble organizing it.

Joe hoped 15 to 20 volunteers would show up for the physical labor. Instead, 43 turned out June 9 to work on the corral and rebuild and repaint the fences and gates. They finished the work in five hours.

When the local troop found out the work they had done would count for Jeff's Eagle, "we were very happy about it," Joe said. "It made all the work worth it."

His Eagle was not the only goal Jeff left unfinished. He died five days before his graduation from Clark.

Principal Wayne Tanaka asked Jeff's teachers and found that he had met the requirements. Tanaka decided that Jeff had earned his diploma and presented it to his mother at his funeral.

"Jeff was a good young man who was kind and courteous," Tanaka said.

He was the kind of young man, his family and leaders recalled, who cared for his disabled older sister. He worked two jobs to help support his family. And, so as not to worry his mother, he didn't tell her about times he passed out while with friends.

He most likely went to his van rather than the nurse's office, Hansen said, so that the school wouldn't bother his mother with a phone call to come pick him up.

On Aug. 20, just days after Paulsen spoke with the coroner, Joe and other Scouts participated in Jeff's Eagle court of honor. His mother received the bronze eagle suspended from a red, white and blue ribbon, the symbol of Jeff's accomplishment.

"He was quiet and he led by example," Paulsen said. "He loved to do the activities -- that was his joy -- and he didn't care about his accomplishments."