Hester

Spring Hill Mayor Rick Graham (right) congratulates Judson Hester (left) for his achievements and contributions to the community during Tuesday night's city meeting.

 Alexander Willis

Judson Hester, an 18 year-old senior at Independence High School, was honored by Spring Hill city leaders Tuesday night for his achievement of reaching the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America — as well as his contributions to the Spring Hill community in helping construct multiple ‘Little Free Libraries:’ portable book enclosures scattered around various parks in the city that offer free reading material to all.

“This is a proclamation to recognize Judson Hester for achieving the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America,” said Spring Hill Mayor Rick Graham during the meeting. “I, Rick Graham, declare that [the] city of Spring Hill does with great pride here acknowledge and recognize you for your contributions to the city of Spring Hill.”

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The rank of Eagle Scout is the highest honor achievable by members of the Boy Scouts of America, with only three percent of members, on average at any given time, eligible to achieve it. Hester earned his rank of Eagle Scout through seeking donations of materials and funding from the Home Depots of Brentwood in Spring Hill, Lowe’s of Spring Hill, Hal August of August Enterprises, as well as the Brigadier General Richard Winn Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Hester was also instrumental in seeing Spring Hill get its own ‘Little Free Libraries,’ and personally helped gather the materials and construct the wooden enclosures himself.

“They’re essentially these boxes with little doors on them, and the idea is to get the community to contribute to people who may not get to read as much by putting books in these libraries,” Hester said. “At any time, you can come and take a book out - preferably you’d take book and put on in - and then you can go and read it and then later on return it. The idea is that the community drives reading through children and the like by stocking and taking books out of these libraries.”

Hester is also the president of the Independence High School Robotics Club, member of the National Honor Society, commander of the ROTC Color Guard, member of the ROTC Drill Team, and is a member of the Independence High School Weekly News Broadcast. Hester intends to study computational neuroscience at Belmont University this fall.