Another member of the local air cadets has reached a medal milestone.
Rimbey’s Cole Greenlees, who is with the 65 Squadron Royal Canadian Air Cadets Ponoka, recently received the Duke of Edinburgh silver award and was one the many Albertans to receive the honour from the province’s Lieutenant Governor Lois Mitchell in a special ceremony in Edmonton April 20.
“It was very rewarding and great to meet the Lieutenant Governor,” said the 16-year-old Greenlees.
“The award is a progressive process and about competing against yourself, so you are the one that dictates how fast you can complete it. Doing it taught me a lot about self-improvement, so I feel I really accomplished something.”
The awards are open to anyone from 14 to 24 with three levels — Bronze, Silver, Gold — with each one requiring a greater amount of time commitment to the four areas of emphasis. These include a new skill, community service, physical activity and an adventurous journey. At least one hour per week for 26 weeks must be completed in the first three areas while the journey at the silver level is set for four days.
“(The adventurous journey) is fairly open about what you can do, so I did it as part of my time with my cadet squadron,” he explained, adding his volunteering with the Rimbey Boys and Girls Club covered the community service portion.
What makes Greenlees stand out a bit is his choice for a physical activity, which is certainly not something one would expect from a teenager in rural Alberta.
“I’m part of a martial art club called European Swordsmanship. We learn about the tournament style arts that comes from the 15th century,” he said.
“It’s really exciting and teaches a lot about self discipline and physical fitness while we learn various guarding and attacking techniques. It sounds violent, but its similar to fencing though with a lot more movement.”
Greenlees is presently working on reaching the pinnacle Gold level, which means he has to complete double the amount of time it took to finish his Silver award.
To do that, he is going to continue his work with the Boys and Girls Club — where he has been a volunteer for the past five years — while using his enjoyment of cross country running for the physical activity aspect. However, his big accomplishment will come this summer as he is going to continue with his aviation studies with a goal of obtaining his pilots licence.
“Overall, it has been a great experience and I’d recommend the program to anyone,” he added.
