GREEN COVE SPRINGS – Not many eighth graders leave a positive legacy at their junior high school.

Enter Shane Sigman, an almost-Eagle Scout and Troop 309 member who attended Green Cove Springs Junior High. For his Eagle Scout project, he renovated a portion of a school courtyard outside the cafeteria, including benches and rails.

Sigman passed the area every day. The fences and benches needed a coat of paint, he said.

“I was afraid someone would lean on the railing and knock it over,” Sigman said. “I was doing my Eagle Scout project and wanted to help the school however I could.”

Eagle Scout projects must be well-planned to the most minute detail like measurements of wood. Sigman fundraised money to get the wood. Sigman and a team had to stain the wood, remove the structures in place and install the new pieces. They arrived on a Saturday and worked for about nine hours.

When a downpour came that Saturday, there were about five hours of work left. He also turned 14 in the middle of his project.

“We came back the next day. On my birthday,” Sigman said. “It’s a birthday project, I guess.”

Sigman still has his conference and board review to go, but there was no pressure to achieve his Eagle Scout rank, he said.

“I want to help out the troop and give back to scouts,” he said. “We do as much as we can in the community.”

Sigman paused and reflected on how completing the project now will free up time when he attends Fleming Island High this fall.

“I just took my time, I had goals and I wanted to complete those goals. I wasn’t planning on being an Eagle Scout this early,” Sigman said. “There’ll be no pressure to do it in high school, so that’s a relief.”

Green Cove Springs Junior High Principal Justin Faulkner has assisted with similar scout-related projects before. He said Sigman’s planning and vision transformed the space.

“I think it's definitely a work that leaves a legacy,” Faulkner said. “Whenever you leave a space better than you found it, especially for an eighth-grader, it’s impressive.”

It’s not just a bench and railings, he added, it’s an improvement to an area students traverse every day.

“With a project like Shane’s, you start the ideas in other kids to do those kinds of projects and improve spaces for the sake of other people,” Faulkner said.

Troop Scoutmaster Marty Luchter called Sigman dedicated, family-oriented, and a good role model for the younger scouts. Sigman is involved in several facets of the Boy Scout organization.

“He’ll jump out and help them right off the bat,” Luchter said of Sigman.

Luchter said Sigman’s project was intense.

“(Sigman) had a lot of hours. He wanted to do it before he turned 14,” Luchter said. “I couldn’t believe it.”