TEMPLE TERRACE \u2014 The welcome sign at Temple Terrace\u2019s 56th Street entrance looks polished now, but getting there took two years, one major hurricane and a much-needed rebuild and renovation.<\/p>\n
But 17-year-old Titus Aitchison, a senior at Middleton High School and member of Troop 120, said ultimately, it was huge success.<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely learned a lot,\u201d said Titus.<\/p>\n
Aitchison worked with the city of Temple Terrace and its Women\u2019s Club to bring the gateway sign back to life as his Eagle Scout project. In late 2023, he was looking for a meaningful project to cap his Boy Scouts career.<\/p>\n
He connected with the Temple Terrace Woman\u2019s Club, who wanted to find a partner to help revitalize the familiar sign just south of Riverhills Drive as part of the city\u2019s 100th birthday celebration.<\/p>\n
The sign had originally been presented to the city by the Junior Woman’s Club in 1982 but was showing its age.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to kind of spruce up the gates to the city for the centennial celebration,\u201d said Marilyn Swanson of the Woman\u2019s Club. \u201cWe started planning this in January 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n
The undertaking became a collaborative effort: The Woman\u2019s Club came up with the initial concept and financed the renovation as a community improvement project, Titus and fellow Scouts contributed sweat equity on weekends and holidays, and the city staff offered guidance to ensure the sign met safety and design standards.<\/p>\n
But as plans were nearly finalized, disaster struck.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight before we started working on it, the hurricane came through \u2026 and halfway destroyed the sign,\u201d he said, referencing the powerful storms of the fall of 2024.<\/p>\n
The damage forced the project to pivot.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to replace a lot more stuff than we expected to,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While the posts supporting the sign remained intact, the wood structure had to be rebuilt.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe structure itself was deteriorating, so it had to be totally renovated, wood replaced, painted,\u201d said Marilyn Swanson of the Woman\u2019s Club. \u201cThe signage was all kind of warped, and so it had to be replaced. It had been wooden, and now it’s not.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sign not only welcomes people to Temple Terrace but also pays homage to volunteers, nonprofits, churches and civic groups that have contributed to the city\u2019s well-being over the years, including the Rotary Club of Temple Terrace, the Temple Garden Club, the Woman\u2019s and Junior Woman\u2019s Clubs and the Uptown Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt shows the organizations in Temple Terrace that are vital to the city,\u201d Swanson said.<\/p>\n
Along the way, Titus also gained firsthand experience working with local government, coordinating with city officials to meet building requirements, approved colored schemes and aesthetic standards consistent with nearby public structures.<\/p>\n
The project was completed in April 2025, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony held the following month. While the renovation was one of the lesser-publicized contributions to the city\u2019s centennial celebration due to technical issues, Titus said the project was well worth it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it was a great experience,\u201d he said. \u201cI definitely learned a lot about leadership, and how to organize things, especially with trying to collaborate between the Woman\u2019s Club and the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now officially an Eagle Scout, Titus gets a daily reminder of that effort when he passes the sign on his way to school.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time I see it, I know I built that,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m pretty proud of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEMPLE TERRACE \u2014 The welcome sign at Temple Terrace\u2019s 56th Street entrance looks polished now, but getting there…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[65042,276,65041,135,137,136,8609,65043],"class_list":{"0":"post-132212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-eagle-scout-project","9":"tag-hillsborough-county","10":"tag-middleton-high-school","11":"tag-tampa","12":"tag-tampa-headlines","13":"tag-tampa-news","14":"tag-temple-terrace","15":"tag-temple-terrace-woman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}