Region – David Baird, a senior at Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School from Clinton, recently earned his Eagle Scout rank
Baird was in the Boy Scouts since he was in first grade. Achieving his Eagle Scout rank, the highest available in scouting, was something that he worked toward for a long time as he earned the required 21 merit badges along the way. When it came time to find a project that would qualify as his Eagle Scout project, Baird turned to his father, who worked at the Clinton Town Hall, to see if there were any issues or problems that needed to be solved or remedied at the Town Hall. The Veterans’ Services Officer, Brandan Bailey, commented that, although somewhat organized, the files on local veterans were all paper copies, and it was quite the task to search through to find the necessary paperwork when someone filed for death benefits. Some of Clinton’s veterans’ records date back to World War I.
Baird decided to spearhead a project to scan all of the records, which took 194 hours to complete, and then put them all on a flash drive for Bailey. As new records come in, they will be easy to scan and add to the drive. The project was completed in October of 2015, but there were two other Scouts approaching Eagle, so the troop decided to wait and hold one Court of Honor, in January of this year.
Baird is now looking forward to a trip to New York with his troop this spring.
