Eagle scout candidate Kelby Gatrell and his dog Duke stand by his project for the Glendale Farm Open Space off-leash dog area.

Article by Elizabeth Wood West with photo provided by the Gatrell family

If you were to ask the average teenage boy how he spent his summer, you probably wouldn’t hear the words, “I worked on my eagle project.” But eagle scout candidate Kelby G. Gatrell, age 17, is not your average teenage boy.

Gatrell is a home-schooled senior, attending Arapahoe Community College part-time, and playing varsity soccer for Douglas County High School. Gatrell has been active in Boy Scouts since he was 11 and is in Troop 765. In between his academic and athletic schedule, he has been putting the finishing touches on his eagle scout project.

All scouts who want to earn the rank of eagle are required to complete a service project that will benefit a school, church, or community organization. The project must meet certain criteria and demonstrate the scout’s planning and project management/supervision skills.

Gatrell’s project is a large double sided bench with a shingled roof overhead, and is made of logs. The structure was built for the Glendale Farm Open Space and is at the top of the hill inside the dog off-leash area. Glendale Farm Open Space is located on the east side of I-25, north of exit 188 Castle Pines Parkway.

The structure provides visitors with a shaded place to sit and enjoy the spectacular views of the mountains and open space. It is adjacent to six dog agility obstacles which were built by another Eagle Scout in 2009. Gatrell worked with Douglas County Parks and Open Space Specialist Jackie Sanders.

According to Gatrell, his project was built using 38 logs removed from another Douglas County open space area south of Castle Rock. All 38 logs used on the project had to be de-barked by hand. The project has more than 500 hours invested in it – 400 man-hours and 100 planning hours.

Like most eagle projects, Gatrell’s project was very challenging. “I learned that I will probably never work with logs again. They were heavy and awkward, worst of all they were not uniform. All measurements had to be altered to accommodate the variations in each log,” said Gatrell.

Gatrell continued, “I really learned how to contact and work with people, how to plan every single detail you could think of (and it still was never enough), how to fundraise, how to organize and lead a crew of workers with no experience, how to process a tree into usable material, how to load a van as full as I can, how to motivate, and how to be responsible for every detail and decision that I made,” he said.

Gatrell added, “I picked this project because my brother Orion did his eagle project (a sign kiosk) at Glendale Farm Open Space five years ago. This project will last long enough that I will be able to show my children what I did, and it was hard. I didn’t want to do a wimpy project; I wanted one that would challenge me and provide me with the most growth. I benefited most of all; the lessons I have learned while working on this project are priceless,” Gatrell said.

When asked what it means to become an eagle scout, Gatrell responded: “Originally, it meant I could get my driver’s license, that was the family rule – eagle equals license. Because of the extreme amount of work that was put into the project, becoming an eagle scout will mean so much more.

To me, it signifies becoming a man. It means that I can do anything, learn anything, and go anywhere if I put my mind to it,” Gatrell said. He continued, “It means that I have actually done something worthy of recognition. I personally feel it can be summed up in a quote by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: ‘Heights by great men reached and kept were not obtained by sudden flight but,