Tim Acker completed his Boy Scout Eagle project this week at the
Gilroy Veteran’s Hall on Sixth Street.
Tim Acker completed his Boy Scout Eagle project this week at the Gilroy Veteran’s Hall on Sixth Street. Acker lives in San Martin and attended Live Oak High School until he graduated in June. He’s attending Columbia College in Sonora this fall to study fire technology in order to become a firefighter. Acker organized the painting and funding of the mural. Through fundraising and donations, he was able to raise about $650.
Editor’s note: Here is the information Tim Acker submitted for his Eagle Scout project.
What: The completion of a full color, full scale hand painted mural commemorating the armed services. I went down to one of the veteran’s social dinners and asked what I could do for them for my Eagle Project. One vet said to build a new snooker table, and another mentioned a new trophy case. The one that caught my ear was the one who asked for me to paint a mural. I knew a guy who could help me out on that. His name is Arturo Rosette, the Art Director for the Mural Classes at Gavilan College. He organizes the yearly mural project with 6th graders at San Martin Gwinn elementary school. I participated in his program when I was in 6th grade and I helped paint the mural on their library that face Llagas Ave in San Martin. Once I talked to him, I found he has a very busy schedule with lots of projects going on, so he referred me to one of his assistants, Randall Vogel. He has been painting his whole life and has known Arturo for over 20 years. While Arturo gave me a good kick start, I was off and running with designing and researching for the mural. What I found out from this project is its not just putting the brush on the wall, its putting time into research, finding out what their uniforms should look like, which rank we should put on these men and where we should place each one in order for the mural to have a little balance. Of course nothing comes free any more, so I was definitely in need of some sponsors. Many families from my Boy Scout troop donated money, Guglielmo Winery donated money, Home Depot donated, Johnson Lumber and also the Veterans matched my funds up to 200 dollars.
Total, the project only cost about 650 dollars. There were several times I had to visit the printing spot store off of 1st street in Gilroy and pay for mass amounts of copies and picture enlargements.
Where: The Veteran’s Building located at 74 West Sixth Street, Gilroy, CA. It is painted on wood panels that were mounted to their brick wall in the back courtyard.
When: The project began about 2 years ago. It took almost two full years just to plan the design, where exactly to put it on the building, how we will put it on the building, where I will get the materials, get the correct approvals from Boy Scouts, the building committee of the vet’s hall and the consent of the Veterans themselves. The mural began its painting about the third week of July and was completed on the 31st of the same month. What took about two times as long was the hand painted ‘seals’ that correspond to each branch of the military. I cut the circles out with a bandsaw, primed them, and Randy and I hand painted them. Randy did the majority.
Why: The Rank of Eagle Scout is accomplished by only three percent of Boy Scouts. It requires 21 merit badges, each rank up to Life Scout, and a project that benefits my community in any way that takes up at least 100 hours. Well, mine came out to be somewhere in the ball park of six to seven hundred hours. Eagle projects requires the scout to show his leadership skills, time management, budget planning and management, taking responsibility of other scouts when they volunteer their time to help and basically just keeping his head on straight. Doing a large project like this from age 16 to 17 years of age is sometimes very tough when you spend most weekends of school and days of your summer getting it done before you turn 18. Once you turn 18 and the project isn’t done, its game over. You have to complete the requirements of Eagle scouts before your 18th birthday. Some scouts cut it close and finish their Board of review just minutes before midnight of their birthday.
Add’l info: This mural completes a portion of Tim’s Eagle requirements. His next step to becoming an Eagle is to appear before the Scout Board of review and several other requirements that he must meet, to determine if he is to be recommended for the rank of Eagle. If all goes well, he could have his Eagle rank completed by late September.
