Dylan Crume’s Eagle Scout Project Also Benefits Heritage Elementary 

Older Brother Davis Crume’s Eagle Project Also Benefited Heritage; Younger Brother Donovan Also Is Expected To Go For His Eagle 

New Tampa Troop 148 Eagle Scout Dylan Crume, with his grandfather Rodney Hawkins and one of the four bird feeders Dylan installed at Heritage Elementary for his Eagle Project. (Photos provided by Dylan Crume) 

Our heartfelt congratulations go out to Meadow Pointe resident and Wiregrass Ranch High junior Dylan Crume, age 17, who recently earned the prestigious rank of Eagle Scout. 

Dylan’s Eagle project was the installation of four bird feeders at New Tampa’s Heritage Elementary. According to Heritage Gifted K-5 teacher Jean Josephson, Dylan and many of his fellow Scouts in Troop 148, which meets at St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church, installed “bird feeders/boxes with flower boxes to attract more birds and pollinators to our campus. Dylan researched ideas for his project, put together a fund raiser to purchase all of the supplies, met with me several times in person and by email to discuss his ideas and beautifully executed the installation.” 

“Mrs. Josephson needed some help, so I offered my services to help make their outdoor classroom look better,” Dylan says. 

Dylan, whose older brother Davis also earned his Eagle Scout rank and also did an Eagle project that benefited Heritage (he created a micro-irrigation system at the school), says that the project took about three months to complete, from conception to conclusion, and that he appreciated the help of his Scoutmaster Jay Sheridan, his Eagle mentor David Thompson and all of the other Scouts in Troop 148 (see photo below) who helped him with the project. 

The Troop 148 Scouts who helped Dylan with his Eagle project. 

For those who don’t know, Eagle is the highest rank a Scout can achieve, and only 5 or 6% of all Boy Scouts earn the recognition. An estimated two million Scouts have earned the rank since the Boy Scouts of America were founded in 1912. Here are the requirements for earning the Eagle: 

• Earning at least 21 merit badges, including 13 Eagle-required ones, covering subjects like personal fitness, environmental science, public speaking, citizenship and financial management. 

• Learning valuable morals and life-lessons alongside friends, as they work together to overcome challenges. 

• Serving as a leader within their troop by taking charge of a patrol. 

• Learning to independently plan itineraries for campouts, backpacking trips and troop excursions. 

• Competing as a unit against other troops in exhilarating, large-scale scout “camporees.” 

• Involving themselves in service by volunteering with local organizations and making valuable connections with community leaders. 

(l.-r.) Dylan, Davis, Alison, Donovan & Donny Crume 

• Coordinating and leading a large-scale volunteer project for the betterment of their community (the Eagle Project). 

Colleges, businesses, the military and community service leaders all respect an Eagle Scout. This performance-based achievement has high standards that not everyone will earn. 

Dylan’s parents told me they are “super proud of Dylan and his Eagle Project,” and that their youngest son Donovan also plans to go for his Eagle. I don’t know what the numbers are, but I’m betting there are very few families with three Eagle Scouts. 

Dylan says he plans to become a firefighter, so service to the community is obviously in his blood. He also says he plays varsity lacrosse and plays tenor sax in Marching Bulls marching band. He also is on the Youth Ministry Team at St. Mark’s. 

So, congrats again, Dylan. The Neighborhood News salutes you!

Heritage Elementary Has A New Butterfly Garden, Thanks To Eagle Project

Heritage Elementary School gifted class science teacher Jean Josephson had an idea to plant a beautiful butterfly garden at her school, but needed some helping hands to bring that project to life.

She got more than she bargained for when she reached out through a friend to Scouts BSA (formerly called the Boy Scouts of America) Troop 148, which meets at St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church on Cross Creek Blvd., just down the street from the school.

That’s when she connected with Isaac VanMeter, a senior at Wharton High, who is on track to become an Eagle Scout and was thinking about ideas for a project to help him reach his goal. 

The butterfly garden project seemed like a perfect fit.

“I had other ideas, but I really like helping with the environment,” says Isaac, who adds that the school beautification aspect appealed to him, as well. “Having a really nice-looking school is good for students, and it’s great for the entire school to have a garden to play in and learn in.”

Jean says Isaac took her idea and ran with it. 

“He did a really, really good job,” she says. “It really exceeded my expectations. I thought I would have to do more planning and directing, but he took control of the whole project.”

While the school already had a vegetable garden and a small butterfly garden, it also had a butterfly mural and space for a much bigger garden to be used for instructional purposes, such as studying the life cycle of butterflies.

Teachers bring students out to the garden to release butterflies raised in the classroom, or to watch worms or bees. They use a curriculum from a nonprofit educational organization called “Agriculture in the Classroom” to bring the lessons to life.

Jean explains that some resources for which plants would work in the garden and how to plant it came from the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS), but Isaac did the fundraising to pay for it and did additional research, making the final selections for what would go in the garden and how it would be laid out.

He brought a team of Scouts out for a workday to make it all happen.

“The soil was so bad that they had to build it up with about seven yards of soil,” explains Jean, “Then, they replaced the edging, put the plants in, mulched the garden, gave it a good watering, and they also mulched the whole courtyard. It was really great.”

Isaac’s next steps are to finish his paperwork and the last three of the 21 required merit badges before his 18th birthday in January. Then, he’ll go before a Board of Review to make his case for why he should be awarded the rank of Eagle Scout.

“This is a big accomplishment,” Isaac says, “something I’ve been working toward for six years.”

Before and after.

Isaac completed the project during his first season playing varsity football, while his team went on a playoff run. He decided to try football his senior year, in addition to competing for Wharton in lacrosse and track and field — throwing discus, javelin and shotput — in previous years.

After graduation, he plans to go to college on a Florida Bright Futures Scholarship — likely at the University of Central Florida in Orlando — and major in finance.

“I really think the whole process of (Scouts) BSA has changed me to be more of a leader and have that mindset of how I can help encourage everyone around me,” he says. “The project taught me how everyone can come together to accomplish things.”

He says he’s pleased with the way the garden turned out and is looking forward to seeing how the plants grow and fill in the garden over time.

Jean says the teachers and the entire school community are thrilled with the opportunities they see for learning in the new garden.

“Everybody is so impressed,” she says. “I can’t wait until it all grows up.”

New Tampa School Grades

*Every New Tampa school had the same grade for 2018-19 as it did the previous school year, with the exception of Hunter’s Green Elementary, which improved to a “B” grade after four straight years of “C” grades.

*New Tampa had six schools earn “A” grades, two that earned B grades and three earned C grades.

*Chiles Elementary was the only New Tampa school to score higher than 80 in English Language Arts (ELA), Math and Science Achievement. 

*Pride Elementary earned the best score among our schools for ELA Achievement (86), while Chiles was tops in Math (85) and Science (85).

*Chiles is now 17-for-17 in earning an A grade from the state.

*However, Benito Middle School, Pride and Clark elementaries all have the longest current streak of “A” grades — 18 straight years, dating back to 2002.

* Freedom and Wharton high schools were both “C” schools for the fourth straight year.

* Did you know that from 2008-10, every elementary and middle school in New Tampa earned A grades?