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Eagle Scout builds Humane Society path

KATE YORK The Marietta Times Devin Aufdenkampe walks with Devon Stout, canine kennel tech, and Sparky, a 5-year-old lab mix, on Thursday. Aufdenkampe recently constructed the walkway at the Humane Society of the Ohio Valley as an Eagle Scout project.

Just in time for the rainy spring weather, a local student created a long-desired solution to keep the paws at the Humane Society of the Ohio Valley–and the shoes of their helpers–much drier.

As part of his Eagle Scout project, Warren High School student Devin Aufdenkampe recently completed a three-foot-wide, 750-foot-long gravel path at the humane society that volunteers can use to walk the dogs.

“The volunteers love it,” said Devon Stout, canine kennel tech. “I walk one of the dogs here, too, and he loves it.”

Aufdenkampe, who just finished his freshman year at Warren, did plenty of research and trial and error while designing the path.

Initial plans to use landscape timbers fell through due to the problems it would cause with mowing and the original idea to have the path be 3,000 feet long hit a snag due to tractor turnarounds from a neighboring farmer that could destroy the walkway.

There were even problems to solve on May 13, as a group of six adults and seven youth gathered to build the path, said Aufdenkampe, of Little Hocking.

“We tried at first to use a sod cutter that Bridgeport Equipment donated but three-fourths of the way through, we had problems,” he said. “We ended up using a tractor sideways to do the rest.”

Aufdenkampe’s father, Craig, who helped with the nine-hour construction, said his son had searched for just the right project that would benefit the community.

“The people here had to walk the dogs in the grass and it gets really muddy,” he said. “The gravel really helps out.”

Aside from the crew assembled that day, Aufdenkampe had some help from the community as well. Smith Concrete donated half of the gravel used, Greenleaf Landscapes donated a tree and mulch and Bradford Backhoe delivered the gravel to the site for free.

As the dogs and volunteers enjoy their new path, next for Aufdenkampe is a review of the project and hopefully Eagle Scout status. The teen, a scout for eight years and a member of Troop 19, followed his brother, Ethan, into the tradition.

“My older brother went into scouting first and he became an Eagle Scout,” Aufdenkampe said.

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