College Park Boy Scout Receives Eagle Scout Award

Earning the Eagle Scout rank as a Boy Scout is no easy feat; mountains of paperwork aside, a Boy Scout must think up—and create-- an original community service project for an organization in need.

But for Patrick Hemmer, 17, of Troop 740 in College Park, the project came easily.  He spent the past weekend creating a guide rope system for the Deaf-Blind Camp of Maryland, complete with a system of knots for adult campers to feel their way through the camp.

The guide rope system is the first of its kind in the nation, according to Loren Lavoy, the troop’s scoutmaster.

The idea came after learning American Sign Language with his father, said Lavoy.  Hemmer worked with the Dead-Blind Camp of Maryland to devise a knotted rope system for the campers.

“They said, you’re a Boy Scout, you know something about ropes and knots,” Lavoy said.

Hemmer hung the ropes at the same height throughout the campground, and used a code system for knots in the rope.  The number of knots in the rope corresponded to different cabins where the campers stayed.

"String secured the ropes to the poles, to keep them at the same height," wrote Hemmer in a press release sent to Patch. "And then we used knots as codes for the deaf-blind: one knot for the rope to the first cabin, two for the second, and so on.”

Fellow Boy Scouts Tom and Matt Pavlat and Ricardo Morales aided in the project.

The rope system is a way for deaf and blind campers to move around the camp without the helpers they usually need to guide them.

“We were looking for a way to get people around unaided,” Lavoy said.

This summer marks the second year Hemmer created the rope system.  Last year, he created the rope system as a sort of trial for this year’s project. 

Hemmer has been a member of Troop 740 since he was 11, according to Lavoy, who describes the Boy Scout as a “confident leader” and “responsible.”

“The project is for people who see the entire world in their hands,” Lavoy said.  “He intuitively translated where they [campers] would place their hands.

Troop 740 meets every Tuesday evening in Fealy Hall, across from on Berwyn Road.