Fitch student plans veteran memorial for Eagle Scout project

September 23, 2015 at 12:05a.m.

By ROBERT CONNELLY

AUSTINTOWN

A Fitch High School student is raising funds to add a veterans monument to the school grounds.

Seth Welch, 15, of Boy Scout Troop 115 which meets at St. Michael Church in Canfield, has collected more than $3,000 of the $8,000 needed for the outdoor veteran memorial.

His plan is to have six, 6-foot tall steel silhouettes in front of six 20-to-25-foot tall flagpoles.

Five of the six silhouettes and flags will represent each branch of the military, and the sixth will be for police officers and firefighters.

The effort is Welch’s Eagle Scout project. He said this will go in what is now a grassy field near the high-school entrance at 4560 Falcon Drive.

“Right now, we have this strong veterans tradition in Austintown, especially in our marching band,” Seth said. He plays the snare drum in the band.

“This is just an even bigger testament to show what the community is all about.”

The goal, which Seth has called aggressive, is to have the project finished by Veterans Day on Nov. 11.

Jack Kidd, Larry Cadman and the Fitch Class of 1962 led the effort for previous veteran memorials on the Fitch campus to remember their fallen classmates – Army 2nd Lt. Charles “Chas” Brown and Marine Sgt. James “Jimmy” Prommersberger.

A stretch of Interstate 80 in the township was dedicated in the name of the two men earlier this year.

Kidd said the veteran’s committee from the Fitch Class of 1962 made a donation to Seth’s project recently.

“We feel that you can’t honor the veterans enough,” he said.

“I couldn’t believe the detail he had up on the board” at a meeting “on this project. It’s just a phenomenal thing for a 15-year-old to have that type of vision on something like this.”

Kidd said that if the project is done before the annual Veterans Day program at Fitch, the memorial could be dedicated after the veterans assembly.

But that depends on fundraising.

“Something like this doesn’t run cheap,” Kidd said. “But he’s getting a lot of help from different people.”

Those who want to support the project can send checks until Oct. 2 to Fitch High School, 4650 Falcon Drive, Austintown, OH 44515. The check should be made payable to BSA Troop 115 with “to benefit ALSD Veteran’s Memorial” written in the memo line.

Donations between $1 and $99 will be printed in the dedication program, and donations of $100 or more will be included on a plaque at the memorial.