Eagle Scout Rocks Out

Matt Sorensen, 15, of Worthington, stands beside the large rock and landscaping arrangement he created recently as an Eagle Scout project.

With luck and good old-fashioned scouting perseverance, Matt Sorensen, 15, will be rocking his Eagle Scout award by the end of the winter, thanks in part to an actual rock. The rock and the surrounding landscaping arrangement Sorensen created is located by the railroad depot at the corner of First Avenue and 12th Street, and the project was completed as part of Sorensen’s work toward becoming an Eagle Scout.

“My brother (David) was an Eagle Scout and I know it was a hard but rewarding accomplishment,” said Sorensen, who has been a Boy Scout since he was 12.

The central piece in Sorensen’s landscaping work is the large rock labeled 1873 — the year of Worthington’s incorporation as a village. Interlocking 12-inch bullet edgers and smaller rocks, as well as about 24 plants, including peonies, day lilies and grasses, surround the rock.

The idea for the project came from the Worthington Area Chamber of Commerce’s City Improvement Committee, whose members wanted to do something in the area. One of them knew Sorensen needed to do a good project in order to earn the Eagle Scout laurels, so they contacted him in late June.

The project was given the green light Aug. 15, and the weekend afterward, Sorensen started working on it, with a goal to have everything completed by King Turkey Day weekend. By the time the parade lined up Sept. 19, Sorensen had everything finished.

“There was a really good visual effect, you could really see the improvement and see how good it looks after you’re done,” Sorensen said.

Before he started the muscle work, Sorensen had to do the brain work, drawing up a design for the layout of the landscape on graph paper, deciding which plants would go where and how the rock-plants grouping would look when it was complete.

He ordered bullet edgers from Block and Tile, measuring the circumference of the project carefully to ensure the right number of edgers would be used.

Then came the back-breaking part of the project — the digging. Sorensen’s task was to dig three inches down into hard-packed dirt, a difficult job for a single person, so he enlisted the help of Troop 121 and his brother. Then the edgers went in, along with fabric on the ground, to prevent weeds from growing in the landscaped area, and finally, plants were added to the mix.

Some of the plants came from a city garden on Tower Street that was being eliminated due to construction. The wheat-like plants came from a friend, and Sorensen had to split them apart. The peonies and day lilies also had to be split apart into smaller plants, and Sorensen had to do research to find out how exactly to divide the plants without harming them.

Sorensen, the son of Maureen and Grant Sorensen of Worthington, spent about 80 hours on the project from planning to completion. He has two more merit badges to complete before he becomes an Eagle Scout and expects to be finished this winter. He will look at the landscaping again in the spring to make any adjustments needed.

Sorensen said he would recommend becoming an Eagle Scout to anyone.

“Don’t give up,” he advised. “Work hard. Get friends to help, because you can’t do it yourself.”

Source: Daily-Globe