Khais Milligan, a member of Jamesville-DeWitt Troop 22, recently completed his Eagle Scout project by constructing a new information kiosk at Fiddlers Green Park in Jamesville.
Milligan’s project is the park’s upper kiosk located just off Solvay Road. Featuring a display board with Fiddlers Green Park Association pamphlets and a trail map presently pinned up behind its glass, the new kiosk’s design was modeled after the park’s lower Jamesville Road entrance kiosk, itself a prior Troop 22 Eagle project.
Milligan said the second kiosk was needed to put out info about the park to its visitors and to raise awareness about the park overall.
The idea for the project was suggested by the park association’s president and former assistant scoutmaster for the troop, Matt Titus, but it was Milligan’s call to place the kiosk closer to the roadside so it would be more visible as a way to draw in more people walking or driving by.
Milligan said he chose to take on the project because it was something that will physically stay up for a long time without needing replacing anytime soon.
“It was a cool idea to me to be embedded in the history of the park,” said Milligan, a Jamesville-DeWitt High School senior. “People in the community can go look at that and see what I accomplished if they’re hiking and they stumble upon it.”
Fiddlers Green is only about five miles away from Milligan’s house, so he has frequented it for years, going back to when he was a cub scout.
He calls the park a peaceful “hidden gem” that’s nice to walk through, adding that more people locally should know about it.
For the recent endeavor, which was Troop 22’s 145th Eagle project in its 93-year history, Milligan recruited helpers from all corners of Central New York that he’s gotten to know, including classmates, soccer teammates, members of his church, fellow scouts, students from other school districts, and other groups of friends.
Milligan also personally went around in uniform to different businesses and organizations to tell them about his project goals and to ask for any products like wood or financial assistance they’d be willing to donate.
Over multiple winter work sessions he coordinated on-site where the kiosk was being installed and off-site at the local window and hardware supply company BR Johnson where his Scoutmaster Ron Alexander works, Milligan and his crew laid down cedar shake shingles for the roof of the kiosk, poured concrete after clearing away snow, and used pressure-treated lumber boards, plywood, galvanized screws and nails for other components.
Hadley’s Landscaping out of Jamesville also offered its services to auger holes in the dirt for the posts.
The process to finish one’s Eagle Scout project includes not just those business visits but also phone calls, meetings, detailed paperwork, the commitment of numerous hours, a good deal of research and planning, and in this case plenty of measurements and the securing of the right weather-withstanding materials, said Lyle Halbert, Troop 22’s assistant scoutmaster and the adviser for Milligan’s project.
The candidate then has to put together a written plan to be presented to the Longhouse Council’s Eagle Board of Review for approval and permission to proceed.
At his presentation, that particular board cited Milligan’s project as one of the most thorough and well-prepared they’d seen in recent times, Halbert said.
“That was a real credit to him,” Halbert said. “I know Khais put a lot of time, work and effort into preparing his presentation package. He had volumes of information and researched the types of materials that should be used and what would have the most longevity.”
Unless given an extension, scouts also need to have all the paperwork for their Eagle project turned in by the time they turn 18. That being so, Milligan came in just under the wire by finishing his project Feb. 3 the very week of his 18th birthday.
He said he feels blessed that everything worked out, fortunate for his supportive network of friends and connections who assisted him, and proud of the end result as far as how the kiosk looks.
“Khais didn’t want to just do the bare minimum to get his project completed,” Halbert said. “He wanted to make something that left a lasting impression.”
Halbert said what makes attaining the rank of Eagle even more impressive is that only a small percentage earn that highest of Scouting America achievements—somewhere in the neighborhood of 5%—and that they have to meet certain basic badge and troop involvement requirements in order to even be eligible in the first place.
Then add in that most pursue the project once they get to their junior or senior year of high school, which can be busy enough with exams and applying to colleges, Halbert said.
Alexander, who has been involved with Scouting for about 35 years now and a leader for much of that time, said Milligan wanted to become an Eagle Scout with all his might and so he was able to, even as he juggled a lot on his plate.
That included keeping good grades in school as a senior earning college credits through Onondaga Community College’s dual enrollment program as well as keeping his eye on his ambition to become a professional soccer player, and with that his travels to Rochester almost every night of every week as a goalkeeper for the youth development league Rochester FC MLS NEXT.
Since finishing his Eagle project, Milligan has committed to Pace University to play soccer, he said.
Adding that he’s a well-liked young man who knows what he has to do to accomplish a task, Alexander said Milligan showed he can be a leader capable of managing a group of people, while Halbert said he demonstrated the right initiative and drive needed to follow through and implement the project he drew up for Fiddlers Green.
This makes five Eagle Scout projects completed at Fiddlers Green Park to this day by J-D Troop 22, which meets at Jamesville Community Church. The other four were the other entrance kiosk and different trail creation and improvement projects for the park, which was created in 2007.
