Aaron Van Dis saw something he believed needed fixing and decided to do something about it.
That ingenuity may very well lead Van Dis, 18, a Brandon High School senior, to attain full Eagle Scout rank later this year.
Van Dis spearheaded a group of between 20-25 volunteers from Boy Scout Troop #340 in Goodrich who installed American flags in each classroom in Brandon High School, 1025 S. Ortonville Road, Ortonville.
Now he has just a couple more steps to take before becoming a full-fledged Eagle Scout.
‘I have to send some information to Texas (Boy Scout headquarters), and then I have one more meeting to attend with a board of review committee from Boy Scout headquarters,? he said.
Van Dis said he first got the project idea about 1-1/2 years ago, after walking into BHS one day and spotting the American flag outside. He then noticed the same item missing in one of the BHS classrooms.
‘I walked into a classroom one day and saw no flags,? he said. ‘This was after 9-11. From there, I talked with Mr. (Jerry) Warner (then a BHS teacher, now a BHS assistant principal) about the idea, and I went from there.?
After presenting his idea at a Boy Scout seminar and collecting ‘about five or six? signatures, Van Dis and the other members of the troop organized a pop can fundraiser to raise money for the flags. He then ordered the flags from a company in Indiana.
Once the flags arrived, the troop drilled holes in each of the classrooms, put mounting brackets in those holes, and put flags on each classroom desk.
The following day, Van Dis had a student from each classroom install the flags and then led the school in the Pledge of Allegiance on the school’s public address system.
The project was the culmination of 11 years of Scouting for Van Dis, who started as a Tiger Scout in the first grade. He has served as a Quartermaster (patrol leader) for Troop #340, and before that was a member of Boy Scout Troop #139 out of Ortonville.
After he graduates from Brandon, Van Dis said he plans to attend Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, where he hopes to study accounting and international business.
He is the son of David and Sharon Van Dis of Ortonville, and has an older brother (Adam, 27) and two older sisters (Alicia, 23, and Katrina Kerpan, 20).