BBCC sign dedicated to Floch brothers of Odessa

Reid Jackson learned an important lesson during his Eagle Scout project – it’s difficult to do big things without partners.

Jackson led a project to build a new campus entry sign for Big Bend Community College. The job was finished this spring when stainless steel letters were posted on basalt columns near the Wallenstien Theater.

The project required eight dump-truck loads of dirt, several loads of gravel, four basalt columns, a concrete pour and landscaping. He needed a skilled metalworker to finish the sign.

Along the way, he was helped by BBCC welding student Rebecca Fitting, Tommer Construction, Evergreen Implement, Moses Lake Steel Supply, BBCC Coach Mark Poth, and BBCC’s Associated Student Body. Reid’s father, Bob, helped with the work and coordination of the project.

“It took a village,” said Reid’s mother Kim Jackson, Student Activities Director at BBCC.

Reid dedicated the sign to former BBCC students Ryan and Drew Floch of Odessa, who died in a boating accident when Reid was a child. Ryan was a star for Coach Poth’s Vikings basketball team. Poth donated the bronze plaque.

“It is appropriate to their memory because the boys (Ryan and Drew) played in the basalt around Odessa when they were growing up,” said their mother, Jewel Floch, who with her husband Clay has worked at an orphanage in China the past two years.

Reid said the project taught him how to ask people for help, “and how willing they were to do it once I asked.”