Good Kid Ian ready to be pinned with his Eagle Scout honors

MANHATTAN, Kan. (WIBW) - 15-year old Ian Carter has been a scout for eight years and is about the receive the ultimate honor to cap off his Scouting career. Ian has completed all the requirements for Eagle Scout (this past fall) and will be honored with his Eagle Award in less than two weeks. This past year during the pandemic, as he was working toward his goal, he also watched as the pastor of his church worked alone to get a service out to the congregation and decided to see if he could help. The pastor had been spending around 25 hours a week making a video for church service, and during Lent that meant twice a week. After checking with the audio person at church they decided to start a YouTube channel for church so that the pastor could do the service live and it could be on YouTube live each time. It started out with just about 5 people in the building including the pastor, audio person, organist and 1‐2 other people to be the congregation. Ian is still getting up early on Sunday mornings to help with the feed.

Ian has been a responsible young man at home as well, starting a newspaper route with his parents when he was four, until the beginning of 2021 when the newspaper changed their format and no longer have papers delivered by carrier. All year long regardless of the weather, often riding his bike, he stopped to catch up with people on his paper routes after school and on Sunday mornings before the sun was up. Now his newspaper routes have been replaced by mowing lawns and raking leaves, often for the same people along his route who have watched him grow up over the years.

This summer he has been helping in his community by volunteering with the Riley County Health Department, greeting people and directing them where to go when arriving for their Covid‐19 immunizations. He has been working on his Public Health Merit Badge and learning what all services the health department provides to the community.

For Ian’s Eagle Scout Project, he’s been working with the Sexton in the city’s largest cemetery to help further document the memorials and headstones of the persons lay to rest within. This cemetery is 45 acres with over 14,000 graves and was established in 1860. Along with other volunteers he has documented over 400 headstones for the section he is working in and uploaded photos to a website “Find A Grave” which is available to anyone anywhere! This saves the Sexton’s office time from searching their records for other tasks they need to spend time on with services and landscape upkeep of the cemetery. The section that Ian has been working in for his project was started back in the 1860s and many boundary markers were made of limestone and deteriorated over the year.

Another part of his project has been to use the Sexton’s map and locate these limestone survey markers, which have been under years of dirt and grass up to several inches. When located a metal rod is placed along side the limestone marker to assist in finding them easier in the future with a metal detector. This will help to update the Sexton’s property marker map. There is a flagpole in the section that has not had a flag flown on it in over 13 years. The rope is missing, and the pole needed some care. With help from the city forestry department, the rope was replaced, the pole was painted and then a solar light was installed and finally a brand‐new US flag is flying on the pole just in time for Independence Day.

Ian Carter is also a busy 10th grader at Manhattan High School. He likes being in marching band, symphonic band and jazz band. He likes to learn about welding and computers.

He is still active in his Boy Scout troop and goes camping with them almost every month. He has been the Senior Patrol Leader and is currently the Asst. Senior Patrol Leader. He will be celebrating his Eagle Scout Court of Honor March 6th with another young man from the same troop. Congrats to Ian and his fellow Eagle Scout, from us here at 13 News!

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