Schmitz said for him, becoming an Eagle Scout is something he wanted to do because it was something achievable.

“I wanted to be an Eagle Scout because it’s something to achieve, it’s a life goal,” Schmitz said. “When everyone looks at ‘oh, you’re an Eagle Scout’, it means you achieved something that took a long time and that you persevered.”

Schmitz goes to Sherman Central School, but for his project decided to help out the town of Clymer by replacing old picnic tables in the town park. Work for doing the project began around the end of last year with Schmitz and his dad looking over portfolios and doing the paperwork. Schmitz said he got the idea to do the picnic tables because another member of his Boy Scout Troop, Caleb Costner, made the benches in the Clymer Town Park for his Eagle Scout project.

“So, we thought of doing the picnic tables because those three and the other seven looked so bad,” Schmitz said. “So, what we did was we looked up online and we got some samples and then we came here and we got an average of the bench length, of the height, how they looked and obviously they were toppled this way and that.”

Zachary Schmitz’s project involved making seven tables for the park, with three of the old ones remaining. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

Schmitz said after a discussion of the best way to go about creating the tables he and his dad followed an old engineer’s way of doing it, creating their own template table to make it easier to put the actual tables together. Other steps included deciding on the wood, making the tables out of pressure treated pine wood, and figuring out the costs, which Schmitz said ended up at about $150 for each of the seven tables he made.

The next step after that was fundraising, followed by making a mock table to help them figure out if any improvements or anything would need to be made. After that Schmitz had to put together more paperwork, saying all together the project came to around 266 hours of work, something he said is rare for an Eagle Scout project.

After doing all of the paperwork, Schmitz got some friends from school and members of his troop to help make the tables. He said they ran into some trouble with the realization that every board in each table has a different tolerance that can skew the measurements. It took an hour and 45 minutes to make the first table because of this, with the others taking around 20 minutes. Schmitz said the first four tables were done one day, followed by the other three done during the next Boy Scout meeting. Other additions to the tables were made along the way, including pieces added to the end as they found the wood was beginning to twist by the summer.

Schmitz said he got help from Clymer Highway Superintendent, Scott Trisket, to deliver the tables to the park. Three of the park’s old tables remain, and while he said he was not sure if he would be asked to make three more to accommodate those, Schmitz has officially put in his paperwork to the council and had his Board of Review with his scout troop. The next step for him is a second Board of Review with the Scout Commission. Schmitz added that he has turned in his portfolio and while he still is required to do one more Board of Review he is basically done because the commission has to go through the portfolio which can take a long time.

Schmitz said he thought it was important to become an Eagle Scout as it opens up many things for the future.

Pictured is Zachary Schmitz, the Eagle Scout from Sherman who did his project making picnic tables for Clymer’s Town Park. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

“Being an Eagle Scout opens you up to many different things, opportunities, college opportunities and the workforce,” Schmitz said. “See, not only am I going to be an Eagle Scout but I also went to something called Boys State. It’s where kids from all over New York gather at a college and try to perform a mock government.”

Boys State is very prestigious and a once in a lifetime opportunity, Schmitz said, as it is something he is not able to do again, adding that it is something that along with Boy Scouts that helps them to learn leadership skills. At Boys State Schmitz was in charge of 70 men in his platoon, and said he has other opportunities in school and with his Boy Scout Troop where he has had other leadership opportunities as well.

Boys State was during this last summer for Schmitz, and something that he said is usually done by students in 11th grade. Schmitz was the Sergeant of Arms at Boys State, involved in six bills to be passed, though he said he was not sure if those bills actually passed. Schmitz also helped pass a record at Boys State, going through 16 laws at Boys State which were then set to Albany.

Looking to the future, Schmitz is interested in going to college for genetics or forensics, something he said he has been interested in since around the age of 10 after watching “Jurassic Park” and following involvements in multiple summer camps for different subjects over the years before that.

“One day we were watching ‘Jurassic Park’, and I remember this like it was yesterday, I said, ‘what are they doing?'” Schmitz said. “And my dad said, ‘that’s genetic engineering’. And I said, ‘I want to do that’.”

Schmitz went to his first genetics camp in Long Island, where he said he was immediately hooked. While he is not quite sure what else the future might hold as far as colleges or starting a family goes, Schmitz said he knows his main interests fall around genetics research or starting a business with his father, which may focus on carpentry. Other genetics work has included finding a benign virus around his camp, which Schmitz said turned some heads, along with having his work published in regards to working on genetics on an ant.

Future hopes for Schmitz include wanting to cure some diseases such as Alzheimers and de-extinct an animal.

“A lot of people say there’s no point to de-extinct a dodo or a mammoth, but you never know until you try,” Schmitz said. “And even if you do try and it’s not 100%, well keep going. You don’t stop, and even if it doesn’t get that far you know that you have stood on the shoulders of giants that have come before you and that next person to stand metaphorically on your shoulders will do even better. I want to be known for something that I’ve done.”