A Boy Scout just days away from graduation from high school has achieved the youth organization’s highest and most coveted rank, thanks to his own initiative and hard work that inspired others to join him.

Benjamin Howard attained the rank of Eagle Scout after years of dedicated service and, not least, completing the project that linked prior generations with his own and helped save some local history and the names of people who made it.

A member of Boy Scout Troop 306 in DeBary, Howard chose as his Eagle project a task that set him apart and enabled fellow Scouts to participate in his endeavor and share in the honor. Howard’s project was to clean the headstones of veterans buried in the Enterprise Evergreen Cemetery, a final resting place established in 1841 that includes some of the early Florida pioneers.