Scout completes Eagle Project of monumental proportions

WOODS CROSS -- The Boy Scouts of America organization marked its 100th anniversary Monday, and a young man from Woods Cross completed a remarkable eagle project to coincide.

Seventeen-year-old Tom Smith had an idea that developed into a vision. He admits many people helped -- it takes a village -- but he wanted something that would last for generations, and believes this will.

As a monument was lowered onto the platform Monday morning, Smith watched his Eagle Scout project take final shape. The idea started three years ago.

"I wasn't trying to be the biggest or the best, or to go for just a big monument, but this was just a monument to Scouting, the 100-year anniversary," Smith said.

The pedestal from Unlimited Designs is based on a Norman Rockwell painting. It weighs 2,500 pounds. The design of the Scout is based on a drawing by Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting.

Smith remembered when he gave his first presentation, hoping to receive donations.

"When I was 14, here in the city office building, before I ever got done giving my presentation, Jennifer Decker wrote me a check for $100 before I even sat down. So, it's just inspiring. It's inspiring to me," Smith said.

He donated $3,500 from his own savings account, and Woods Cross business owners and individuals have given the rest -- nearly $45,000.

Well-known Utah sculptor Stan Watts brought Smith and members of his troop into the creative process.

"I was kind of directing about eight boys, and the Scouts had a ball," Watts said. "Pretty soon they said, ‘Where do I sign?' We blocked it in, in one Saturday."

History of the Boy Scouts of America

In 1907 Robert Baden-Powell, a Lieutenant general in the British Army, founded the Boy Scouts after discovering English boys were reading his manual on wilderness survival, written for British soldiers. Gathering ideas from Ernest Thompson Seton, Daniel Carter Beard, and others, he rewrote the manual as a nonmilitary nature skills book and called it Scouting for Boys. Chicago Publisher William D. Boyce, visting London in 1909, got lost in a dense fog. A boy came to his aid and, after guiding the man, refused a tip, explaining that as a Scout he would not take a tip for doing a Good Turn. The experience inspired a meeting with Baden-Powell, which resulted in Boyce incorporated the Boy Scouts of America on February 8, 1910.

Both the artist and the design company managers worked for cost and did so quickly to install the project on Feb. 8, the 100th anniversary of Scouting.

Dustin Williams, the project manager from Unlimited Designs, said he is proud to be a part of it.

"Some serious dedication on Tom's part," Williams said, "definitely one for the books for him, that's for sure."

The new monument stands 17 and a half feet tall.

"It feels like a lot of weight's been lifted off my shoulder," Smith said. "It looks great. I'm glad it's done."

The Scout Oath begins, "On my honor, I will do my best..." Smith, many say, has done just that.

Smith has more to do on this project. He wants the names of his top donors or their Scout masters included on the pedestal's plaque, and he still needs to raise $5,000.

E-mail: cmikita@ksl.com

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