PUTNEY — The path to Eagle Scout status, the highest rank in Boy Scouting, has been cleared for Evan Martin of Putney, by his helping design and build a new sign for Rescue Inc.'s headquarters.
Martin, who just turned 18 and just graduated from Brattleboro Union High School, is a member of Brattleboro Troop 405. He completed his Eagle project before his birthday as required.
Rescue Inc. provides emergency medical services to 14 communities in southern Vermont and New Hampshire. The squad helped Martin with the design of the project. The free-standing, fenced, and painted aluminum sign - 9 feet long and 3 feet high with vinyl blue-and-white lettering - now graces the property at 541 Canal St. in Brattleboro.
“It's beautiful,” said Linda Goss, Rescue's director of administration.
“The project took about a week to build and cost $1,500,” said Peter Massari, Troop 405's Scoutmaster.
The project cost Rescue $800, Goss reported, and the rest was donated.
Apart from working for TransCanada, the hydroelectric energy company, Mussari has been with Troop 405 for about 11 years and spends about 10 hours a week with Scouting activities. He also coaches Little League - which, he says, takes even more time - from March to June.
A call to serve
Martin, along with his brother Adam and their father, Ed, also serves as a volunteer firefighter in Putney. All responded to the Nov. 1, 2009, fire at the Putney General Store, which destroyed the structure for the second time in two years. Arson is the suspected cause.
“I was too young for the first time it burned down,” Martin said, adding that firefighters are notified via pagers of an emergency and they converge at the station on Route 5. If there is a working fire, they then travel on fire vehicles to the scene.
“The building was in the putting-the-roof-back-on stage and it took us two to three hours to put it out,” Martin added.
Adam Martin refurbished a sign for the Putney Fire Department and built a fence around it for his Eagle Scout project.
The family owns and operates Wayside Fencing in West Brattleboro, where Evan also works in summer and in free time. The company donated materials for both of the Martins' Eagle Scout projects.
Evan's mother, Carrie, teaches in Chesterfield, N.H. The oldest brother, Chris, works as a surveyor in New Hampshire.
Firefighting and its ancillary duties, including paramedic services, have caught the attention of the two brothers. This fall, Martin will attend Southern Maine Community College, where he will study, not surprisingly, fire fighting for four years, “You spend two years apiece on firefighting and paramedic studies,” he explained.
His brother Adam attends Anna Maria College in Paxton, Mass., where he is enrolled in the school's fire science program.
He's looking forward to school. “I got hired on to a live-in program at the Buxton Fire Department. Basically, you live at the station for free,” said Martin, adding that about half of the 60 incoming students get accepted to similar programs.
Martin was a Cub Scout for about three years, he recalls, then moved up to the Boy Scouts.
“My brothers had been, and I just followed,” he said. “I liked most of the activities and learning about first aid and camping and fingerprinting - probably I liked first aid the best,” he said, mentioning his interest in becoming a paramedic.
He completed the merit badges to qualify for Eagle Scout and then had his sign project approved.
The date for the Eagle Scout ceremony has not yet been set.
Martin will join about two million other Eagle Scouts. Only 5 percent of all Scouts since 1912 have received an Eagle badge, including many notables as diverse as Donald Rumsfeld and Michael Moore.
Besides working, Martin says he likes hanging out with his friends. They travel to Keene, N.H., for go-carting, and play laser tag in Hadley, Mass. He added that girls come along on some of these ventures.
Does he win a lot in laser tag?
“Oh, yeah,” Evan said, “but there's an occasional lapse.”