And over the summer, the 17-year-old earned the highest award she could as a Girl Scout, the Gold Award, making her the first person in Senior/Ambassador Troop 785 from the Fort Huachuca Service Unit — to the best of the current troop leaders’ knowledge — to receive it.
“It’s such a rare thing, but the leadership qualities you gain from earning it I really wanted,” Taylor said of her decision to work toward the award.
 Allison Taylor, 17, has earned the Girl Scout Gold Award. (Vera Davis•Herald/Review) |
For her project, Taylor wanted to do something that would get her outdoors.
“I’m kind of an outdoorsy person,” she said.
What she ended up doing was cleaning up and repainting an abandoned search and rescue helipad on Huachuca Mountain Peak.
Taylor felt renovating the helipad would help provide response to hikers who are injured.
“It allows easier access to them if they’re injured,” she explained.
Prior to even doing the renovation, Taylor had to get permission from all the necessary people on Fort Huachuca, such as Garrison Commander Col. Melissa Sturgeon, in addition to environmentalists who told Taylor what kind of paints she could use.
Taylor’s work in that part of the project was a learning experience for most involved.
“This year has kind of been a building one,” said Taylor’s mother, Wendy, who’s also her troop leader. “Allison’s project was certainly a pioneering effort ... it’s a learning process on both sides.”
With several other girls in the troop working toward their Gold Awards, Wendy said Taylor’s experience lets both the troop and people on post know what to expect the next time around.
The work on the helipad itself was physically demanding, Taylor said, requiring about a two-and-a-half-mile hike, which took about an hour and a half, to reach the pad for Taylor and the nine-person team she’d compiled.
“Carrying tools, it was a long hike,” Taylor said.
According to her Girl Scout Gold Award final report, Taylor said the work was tough.
“Not only did we have grass, but also shrubs and bushes that had grown through the helipad,” Taylor wrote. The helipad is approximately 40 feet by 40 feet.
Taylor said there was immediate satisfaction in completing the labor part of the project.
“The impact of this project is simple to see,” she wrote in her final report. “Previously, there was no way an emergency helicopter could service the Huachuca Peak complex. Now, a helicopter can land in complete safety from a pad that can be easily viewed at altitude.”
The total completion time for her Gold Award project, from conception to the final report, was 153 hours, through which Taylor said she learned a lot.
“I’ve definitely learned more about patience,” she said, in addition to developing leadership skills.
Wendy said it was neat, both as a mother and Taylor’s troop leader, to see Taylor receive her Gold Award.
“It really makes me proud of her because she’s grown up in even more ways than I could have imagined,” Wendy said.
Herald/Review reporter Katie Evans can be reached at 515-4611 or by e-mail at katie.evans@svherald.com.
