Clarksville Teen's Eagle Scout Project Could Help 911 Find Lost Hikers

A 15-year-old Boy Scout who grew up hiking the trails at Lapping Memorial Park is now trying to fix the very signage that once left him and other visitors turned around in the woods. Logan Conklin, a member of Troop 4010, is leading a comprehensive trail navigation overhaul at the Clarksville park for his Eagle Scout service project, replacing broken markers and confusing forks with a numbered locator system designed to help emergency responders find hikers fast.

Conklin has hiked Lapping Park's trails with his family and played in the park's amphitheater growing up, and he now attends the Clarksville Parks summer camp there, according to WAVE News. The park's roughly four-mile trail system has long suffered from broken markers, weathered signage, and difficult trail forks that commonly leave hikers unsure which way to go, the outlet reports. Conklin is responsible for leading the project himself, working alongside the Clarksville Parks Department, which has partnered with him on the effort.

A Master Map Tied to GPS Coordinates

At the center of the project is a master map Conklin is creating that links unique identification numbers on every new trail marker to specific GPS coordinates. Once finished, he plans to share that map with Clarksville's 911 dispatch center and emergency responders, so that a hiker who gets lost or injured can simply report the number on the nearest marker to a dispatcher. Trail-marker numbers like these would allow first responders to pinpoint a hiker's exact location rather than searching unmapped terrain, per the same WAVE News report. According to ABC7 Chicago, 9 hikers from Indiana and Chicago were rescued after getting lost in Kentucky's Red River Gorge's Indian Staircase, illustrating the challenges responders face when hikers cannot clearly identify their location.

That kind of fix addresses a documented gap in emergency response nationwide. Roughly 34% of emergency calls in the United States involve locations lacking a standard street address, with public hiking trails representing a primary category of those unaddressed calls, according to GIS mapping research from Esri. Clarksville's dispatch center serves a town of roughly 22,000 residents and relies on pre-mapped grid coordinates to coordinate police and fire response, according to the Town of Clarksville, which is exactly the kind of system Conklin's marker numbers are meant to feed into.

Rebuilding the Trailhead Kiosks

Conklin also plans to repair the park's four main trailhead map kiosks and print updated large-scale maps for visitors, per WAVE News. His updated marker design calls for 4x4x6 wooden posts topped with metal trail markers and metal caps, set in concrete foundations specifically to resist theft and vandalism, according to details posted on his GoFundMe campaign page. He also intends to replace lighting and easily damaged posts with those same permanent heavy-duty wooden posts.

The Clarksville Parks Department is backing the build in practical ways, providing Conklin with a 4x4 utility vehicle, secure material storage, and access to a water supply for mixing concrete on-site, the station notes. Conklin is raising more than $3,000 through his GoFundMe page to cover durable building supplies, concrete, hardware, paint, and high-quality printed maps, and community members can donate directly to the verified campaign.

Municipal Backing and Scouting Tradition

Before bringing the plan to the Clarksville Town Council in August, Conklin submitted his wayfinding design to the Clarksville Parks Board, where it received unanimous approval, according to a Clarksville Parks and Recreation post. Lapping Memorial Park itself spans 332 acres at 2404 Greentree North and includes the 18-hole Wooded View Golf Course, an 18-hole disc golf course, Endris Lodge, an outdoor amphitheater, and athletic fields alongside its trail network, according to GoSoIN.

Troop 4010 traces its roots back to 1929, when it was founded under Morton Memorial Church before moving to St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in 2009, making it one of the oldest scouting organizations in Southern Indiana, per the Town of Clarksville. The town itself became the troop's official charter organization in 2021 after the Archdiocese of Indianapolis ended parish sponsorship of Boy Scout troops over liability concerns, giving Clarksville officials a direct stake in supporting scouting initiatives like Conklin's. Conklin was also chosen by Clark County REMC in March 2024 to represent Troop 4010 at the Camp Kilowatt youth leadership program, a nod to his track record of community involvement before taking on the park project.

The wayfinding push at Lapping Park is not happening in a vacuum. Upgrades to signage across public parks like Lapping were formally folded into Clarksville's Regional Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy to support outdoor tourism and public health, according to a 2020 planning document from River Hills. That means Conklin's teenage safety fix lines up with goals town planners had already set for the park years before he picked up a shovel. Nationally, about 55,000 youth earn the rank of Eagle Scout each year through Scouting America by planning and leading a major community service project before turning 18, making Conklin's effort one small part of a much larger tradition of teenage-led civic work.