If all goes as planned, an Ironton student will soon achieve the highest rank attainable in the Boy Scouts.

Cody Quillen, a senior at Ironton High School, just completed his service project in an effort to earn the ranking of Eagle Scout.

Quillen’s project was to organize a small group of fellow Boy Scouts and paint bathrooms and do other maintenance work at Community Hospice of Southern Ohio.

“I was presented the idea by my Scout master,” Quillen said. “I had a different idea but it kind of hit rock bottom. I decided this sounds reasonable and it will work.”

The boys finished the work Friday.

Quillen said an important part of the project was picking the right four Scouts to help with the work.

“I got the ones I knew would do work and be quiet enough,” Quillen said.

Mandy Medinger, marketing and community outreach specialist, said Hospice is happy to be a part of Quillen’s becoming an Eagle Scout.

“Community Hospice is just honored to be able to help with this,” she said. “Eagle Scout is a very high honor and we definitely want to become involved with the community.”

Quillen, part of Troop 106, was a Boy Scout when he was younger but quit for about four years when he was a sixth grader.

In the tenth grade, he felt compelled to start again.

“I was like, ‘Man, I miss it,’” he said of the time he started again in 2007. “When I came back it was just like, ‘”Why did I ever leave?’”

Recognizing his goal of becoming an Eagle Scout and knowing that he had a limited time to reach that goal, Quillen and the leadership in his troop did everything they could to get him there.

“I moved, I moved, I moved,” he said.

In order to become an Eagle Scout, a scout has to earn 21 merit badges as well as complete the service project and other requirements — all before the age of 18.

Now that the project is complete, Quillen will be interviewed by an Eagle Scout board of review and take part in a Scout Master conference before hopefully being accepted as an Eagle Scout in the coming months.

While Quillen will be relieved to achieve the ranking, his time in the Scouts is far from over, he said.

“It’s a really big stress off my shoulders,” he said. “But I’m not done. I’m going into training to be a scout master.”

Quillen, who plans to attend Ohio University Southern in the fall, said his favorite parts about the Scouts are being outside and the friendships he’s made.

“I’m going to stay in it as long as I can stay in it because I missed it,” Quillen said. “I like just being able to be outdoors. I have 15 boys in my troop. I knew one person when I joined and now most of the people there are good friends.”