{"id":14526,"date":"2016-06-15T11:40:53","date_gmt":"2016-06-15T15:40:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=14526"},"modified":"2016-06-15T11:40:53","modified_gmt":"2016-06-15T15:40:53","slug":"local-student-brings-home-the-gold-with-the-duke-of-ed-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/local-student-brings-home-the-gold-with-the-duke-of-ed-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Local student brings home the gold with the Duke of Ed award"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

It wouldn\u2019t be an understatement to say last week was a very good week for local student Adam Starr.<\/p>\n

First, he was named Pickering College\u2019s Rugby MVP.<\/p>\n

A couple of days later, he was named his graduating class\u2019 valedictorian. <\/p>\n

And, to cap it all off, he received word he had achieved Gold in the Duke of Edinburgh\u2019s Awards, an accomplishment seldom completed by high school students before the end of their last year of high school. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was probably one of the hardest things I have ever done,\u201d says Adam, an active member of the Aurora Barbarians Rugby Team, who also participates in Aurora Jays Baseball as well the Aurora Master Ducks Swim Club. \u201cIt has never been [completed] at this school in high school and that was my goal. It was a crunch, but two weeks before graduation, I got it and it was just the best feeling. Getting it in general was quite difficult, but getting it before graduating was the best thing that could have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Duke of Edinburgh Award was founded by Prince Philip in 1956 to help youth from around the Commonwealth find the best within themselves through community service, athletics and getting out into the world by performing \u201cadventurous journeys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adam\u2019s adventurous journeys ranged from exchange programs in Australia to dog sledding in northern Ontario. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I really hold close [to my heart] is dog sledding, which I did twice,\u201d he explains. \u201cThe first time was in Grade 11 and I wasn\u2019t good at it then, then this year I went again and had more of a leadership role as well. You\u2019re literally out there for four days and if it is cold, you\u2019re cold, and if it\u2019s warm, that is a luxury.\u201d<\/p>\n

To prepare for the dog sledding trek, he had to participate in a \u201cpre-journey\u201d which prepares teens for the task ahead. While chopping wood preparing the cabins and forts for the campers to sleep in, he slipped, the axe went right into his hand, and he proudly sports the scar near his thumb as a \u201cDuke of Ed\u201d badge of honour.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was decent,\u201d he says with a laugh. \u201cYou have to make some sacrifices to get through. You\u2019ve got to do it. With the Duke of Ed, it will teach you.\u201d
\nIt was never easy, he notes, and he came close to giving up halfway through this, his final year at Pickering College, but he kept his eyes firmly on the finish line.<\/p>\n

In the community volunteerism component of the program, Adam focused on many different areas, not the least of which was the area of food and food security, volunteering at the Aurora Food Pantry, for instance, as well as what became Pickering College\u2019s in-house program Field to Fork, which imparts practical culinary skill to students. <\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone needs to eat, so you might as well do it up well and if people know how to do it, they will use it forever,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

Adam is expected to receive his Gold Award from a member of the Royal Family at a Toronto ceremony in September. While the particular member of the Royal Family hasn\u2019t yet been announced \u2013 his family has heard rumblings it could be the Duchess of Cambridge \u2013 Adam is rooting for a close encounter with The Queen.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing the Queen would be wild \u2013 and it would be a good picture!\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

At the moment, though, he is focused on Friday, which will see him get up in front of the school to deliver his valedictory speech. As the guy who will be representing his class, he says he wants to send them off on a good note. <\/p>\n

\u201cChairs are going to be full, tensions are going to be high, emotions are going to be wild, and I am going to need to give a good goodbye speech,\u201d he says, noting he is heading to St. Francis Xavier University in the fall to study business. \u201cIt is a whole new adventure. I want to sell stuff. I think I am pretty good at persuading people, but that has yet to be determined \u2013 and I think that\u2019s what university is going to bring: a solidified answer.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It wouldn\u2019t be an understatement to say last week was a very good week for local student Adam Starr.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/2016-06-16-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3Mi","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-23 13:39:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}