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By: Rebecca Miller
“A great partnership between the school and the village” is the way that Pioneer Public Works Supervisor and North Central School Board member Anthony Burnett describes the projects completed by the two entities. The most recent project accomplished, on August 13, 2020, was the erection of two Eagle Nesting Boxes built by NCHS students.
Mr. Nathan Shamp, the teacher of the OARs class, Outdoor Adventure and Recreational Studies, at North Central High School explained in a phone interview that Mr. Burnett had the idea and approached him about his class doing the building portion of the project, last school year.
Shamps and Burnett have collaborated over the past few years on a number of projects that benefit the students and the village, so he was happy to jump on board with this one also.
The village provided the materials and around half of the OARs students provided the labor to build the two 7’x7’ frames out of treated lumber. The two class periods of students worked on them last Spring with Mr. Shamp and were able to get them built in just four days.
In August, Burnett and the village crew were able to get them raised up into the air for potential eagle nesting. The poles are around 35 feet up in the air and are located with one at the rear of Floral Grove Cemetery near the St. Joe river and the other out by the village sewer lagoons off County Road 15.
Burnett did quite a bit of research about how to entice eagles to a site, after he was informed by residents that they had seen some eagles in the area. He checked into how to build nesting sites and the best places to mount them before presenting the idea to the village for the payment for supplies, and to Mr. Shamp for the labor.
Mr. Shamp has been with North Central for nineteen years and has taught the OARs class for the past three. Burnett said that he has appreciated the willingness of OARs students to volunteer their time to help some senior citizens in the village by clearing out gutters and trimming trees and bushes at their homes.
Burnett also helps students in their classes by working with OARs as well as with FFA in carpentry. “They build about ten picnic tables every year for the village,” Burnett said.
“The village provides the materials and they build them and it is a great partnership. I am not sure you see that everywhere.” So now they watch and wait, with hopefulness that some eagles will choose to nest there in the near future.
Rebecca can be reached at publisher@thevillagereporter.com