Youth earns Eagle Scout status

Sam Davis, center, installs a rail on his Eagle Scout fencing project in Sisters.

Sam Davis, a junior at Sisters High School, will achieve the rank of Eagle Scout this summer. He recently completed a community service project that made his promotion possible.

"You have to do a service project to become an Eagle Scout," said Davis. "And you need to put 100 hours into the project -- the planning, organizing, and then doing it."

Davis selected his project with the help of the Sisters City Council.

"I went to City Hall and talked to Gary Frazee -- the (Public Works) guy," said Davis. "We just walked around Sisters looking for something I could do. Gary said he wanted a fence built along Locust Street, so that's what I chose for the project."

Davis completed the project, installing 360 feet of fence at Locust and Sisters City Park, with the help of several friends.

"I lived in Portland until I was 14," Davis explained. "After we moved to Sisters, I decided to stay with my old Troop -- Troop 30 -- rather than joining a new one here. I commute to Portland and go on monthly campouts with my troop."

Davis invited his Portland scout master, three assistant scout masters, and several other Eagle scouts to come assist him with the fence building. With 10 people working on the project on Saturday, June 1, the fence was in place in only four hours.

"I got to count the hours each person worked as part of my 100 hours," Davis said. "So, with 10 of us working for four hours, that represented forty hours. I put in 120 hours overall on this project."

The City of Sisters provided a backhoe and prepared the ground for Davis, and purchased all necessary materials. But the rest was up to Davis and his friends.

"There was a barbed wire fence there that we tore down several weeks ago," he said. "We had two post-hole diggers on Saturday. The hardest part was digging up the roots and rocks and deciding the best place to put the posts."

He still has some paperwork to fill out and turn in before the deal is done, but Davis expects to participate in the Eagle Scout ceremony sometime this summer.

Davis plans to go on to become a Junior Assistant Scout master.