Restoring Art Leads To Eagle Rank

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For Taylor Thompson, earning his Eagle Scout rank was both a community service and a personal project for him and his father at Kalaheo High School.

They lent a hand to two works of art that needed care and maintenance at the school, and one of them in particular was important to him.

“The sculpture was really cool, and we had ties with (one of the artists),” said Taylor, 16, referring to Graduation. “It just seemed like a good idea - the right project.” The sculpture was commissioned and created 20 years ago by accomplished sculptor, architect, artist and writer Jim Charlton. Now deceased, Charlton was a friend of Taylor’s father Kimbal Thompson, also an architect, who was present at the original dedication.

“I think it was in 1984,” said Kimbal. “People stood on the second level above the sculpture and flooded the place with paper airplanes that were the same color as the statue (bright orange), which were also the programs for the dedication.”

The giant orange steel sculpture as well as Kalaheo’s bronze horse had been slipping into disarray due to lack of care. So the Thompson duo and scout team decided to reverse the process. (Dr. Robert Flowers donated the mustang - Kalaheo’s mascot - in 2004.)

Taylor had met Charlton when he was very young, explained Kimbal. “We stopped by Kalaheo to look at the sculpture because I wanted to show it to him a - it was something made by a person he had met who was no longer living - and we noticed that it was getting to be in somewhat deteriorating condition,” he recalled. “We later thought it would be a great Eagle Scout project.”

Taylor put a proposal together on the double restoration, and he personally scrubbed and waxed the bronze statue. “It had a lot of dirt and spots on it,” he said, “so we scrubbed and scrubbed at it for hours, and afterwards it looked pretty new.”

He officially received his Eagle badge in an honors ceremony last week on the Kalaheo campus among his fellow scouts from Troop 223 of St. Anthony’s School.

When the project was completed last year, Taylor went right into more community work.

“I volunteer with the Kokua Festival picking up trash and educating people on the environment,” said the Mid-Pacific Institute junior. “I would really like to do more with that.”