By J.R. Tidwell / Editor

The American flag now waves proudly near the entrance to the St. Vincent’s Chilton campus in Clanton.

The flagpole, which was dedicated during a ceremony July 31, is the result of a community outreach service project by Payton Parrish. Parrish, who graduated from Chilton County High School in May, completed the undertaking as part of his requirement for attaining the rank of Eagle Scout.

“The service project for Eagle Scout is one of the biggest requirements for the rank, I’d say,” Parrish said. “It’s a service project that benefits non scouting-related purposes. It’s usually something in the community say for your church, non-profit organizations, hospitals or schools, anything like that. There are numerous things people have done. It was the last requirement I had to complete. I will have my board of review now.”

Parrish said the idea to place a flagpole at St. Vincent’s came about after an employee contacted his former scoutmaster with the idea.

“He knew I was looking for a project,” Parrish said. “I had thought about doing something either at my church or here. Originally, we were going to do a different project here, but that didn’t work out due to some general contracting issues. Then we started exploring the possibility of putting in a flagpole, because there wasn’t one here. We started looking at locations, and decided on right here. I started researching it and raising the money, and we kind of went from there. Everything just kind of flowed.”

Members of the hospital’s staff and administration were on hand for the dedication ceremony.

St. Vincent’s Chilton administrator Suzannah Campbell thanked Parrish for his hard work.

“I have had the great pleasure of working with Payton Parrish over the last year with his project while it was coming together,” she said. “This is the last thing the campus was missing. We’ve known we needed it. There was some discussion when we built the new hospital about relocating the old (flagpole) from the other hospital, but that never came to fruition. When Payton came it was just a natural project to take on.”

Parrish thanked St. Vincent’s and everyone who helped him complete the project as part of a speech during the ceremony.

“This project wouldn’t have been possible without all those people and the community really helping with this,” he said. “It took a lot of hours to put this together after researching and getting all of the materials. It meant a lot to have (my friends) here to help me. It was great working with the staff at St. Vincent’s. It has been a great experience doing this project.”

Parrish said that the project was bigger than just himself or just a requirement for the rank of Eagle Scout.

“It means a lot to me, and I hope it means a lot to the community as well,” he said. “It’s great to see where we are now and be able to look at it compared to where we were a few months ago with just a blank slate and what we’ve been able to do with it.

“There was a lot to the process. To be here with this now is surreal. One of the main purposes of the project was for me to develop my leadership skills. Leadership is a word claimed by a lot of people but demonstrated by very few. I think this has really helped me build those skills and grow as a person. It feels great to stand here, and I hope this means as much to the community as it has to me.”