My ham radio friends use abbreviations for just about everything.  It's a carryover from the old days when Morse Code ruled the long wavelength bands hams liked to use to set DX (distance) records for their broadcasts.  Out of respect (and I suspect a healthy desire to please), all women regardless of age are referred to as "YL"s (young ladies).

Tonight my sweetheart received her Young Women's Medallion, along with the other YL's shown in the picture above.  She mentored Brook Lindsay, standing just to the left of Willyne.  Brook made a deal with Willyne - if I'm going to do all this work to get this medallion, then you're going to do it with me!  So they both did, and indeed it was a lot of work but so worth it!

Each young woman, including Willyne, spoke brieflly, sharing their testimonies and telling about some of the things they did to earn this beautiful medallion.  (Willyne got a silver one with a red ruby in it, it really is nice!)  I was supposed to "close my ears" when she said that this is harder to earn than the Eagle scout is for the young men.  I'm not going to weigh in on whether the projects (that can take 10-20 or more hours for each of eight values) the young women do are harder than twenty-one merit badges, most with several difficult requirements each (for example, I failed swimming twice as a teenager because I could not get my clothes off in the water and formed into a working flotation device in the required 20 seconds), plus four service projects of several hours each, capped by a leadership service project that is a minimum 60 hours and includes having to convince an intimidating panel of adults not once but twice that the project you designed and put into a presentation book is (a) worthy of the Eagle Scout award and (b) that you completed every aspect of the project you designed.

I will leave that debate to others and smile at both sides because the truth is both the Young Women Medallion and the Eagle Scout are huge accomplishments that take lots of planning, dedication, and most of all perseverance!  Kudos to all of these young women tonight!  It was my pleasure to participate in the evening and smile.