Guilford Student Wins Award for Safe Boating Information

By Jack Kramer

Correspondent

GUILFORD, CT – A Guilford High School senior was among those honored recently as a participant in Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) Student Boating Safety Ambassador Program as part of National Safe Boating Week.

Ben Cousins, 18, created a poster that in his words “explained how to be safe while boating.”

Ben said he’s “been on boats all of my life. I love being out on the water. It’s a cool way to bond with my father.”

One of the reasons Ben said he did the project is he is mostly known as he plays both basketball and soccer at Guilford High.

“But I also enjoy the outdoors, especially boating,” said Ben, who will be studying business at the University of South Carolina this fall.

“Introducing safe boating practices and procedures to students at the middle and high school level will help prepare them for the future – when they may be boating with family and friends,” said Robert Klee, DEEP Commissioner.

“Our goal is to educate students on safe, recreational boating procedures by providing important information to them during their teenage years.”

The program was designed to create awareness at their schools about boating safety in a peer to peer approach.

Students from 35 shoreline middle and high schools in the state created boating safety presentations that were put on display for a month at the ambassador’s school.

The displays were also showcased at the Legislative Office Building this week during National Safe Boating Week (May 16-22).

The students will receive credit for their project as either a community service project, senior project or extra credit. For their hard work, the students were awarded Certificates of Appreciation from the DEEP.