Girl Scout earns top medal

Fifteen-year-old Samantha Deangler earned the Spirit Alive medal from the Girl Scouts, one of the highest medals she can earn as a senior Scout.

Samantha has been involved in Scouting since she was a 5-year-old Brownie. Over the years, she’s made close friends with the girls in Troop 792, which is based at St. Clement Mary Hofbauer, Rosedale.

Samantha laughs as she said she and her friends are still selling cookies, but they do it to raise money to go on Girl Scout trips.

“I’ve been with the same people for so long; they’re all my friends,” she said. Last year the girls traveled to Santa Monica, Calif., and Los Angeles.

Samantha, a sophomore at the Institute of Notre Dame, Baltimore, decided to earn the Spirit Alive medal, which is a yearlong process, because she had earned all the other religious awards.

The medal focuses on the Holy Spirit, and she researched the Holy Spirit, learning about the symbols of the Holy Spirit and the scriptural references.

“It wasn’t that hard for me because it was interesting,” said Samantha, who is in an honors program at her school and on the softball team.

She visited the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, Homeland, and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Baltimore, and found and compared the symbols in both churches. The project included keeping a journal, which she discussed with her pastor, Father Donald Grzymski, O.F.M.Conv., who is an Eagle Scout.

The medal criteria demanded a service component, and Samantha chose to lector at her church – something her pastor had asked her to do to get other young people involved.

“I thought it was hard but once you got into it, it was pretty easy,” she said. She also baked casseroles for Beans & Bread, a St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore soup kitchen in Fells Point.

Father Grzymski presented the medal to her at the parish Scout Mass Feb. 9.