Beth Prior, freshman in civil engineering, became a Girl Scout when she was in kindergarten, following in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother.
Before Beth was born, her mother Judy Prior led a Girl Scout troop. She took a break when she had kids, and once Beth was in kindergarten, she began to lead another troop of Beth and her friends.
Judy said it was important to her that Beth be involved with Girl Scouts because it had so positively impacted her own life.
Beth said she was immediately drawn to the outdoors — setting up tents, cooking food and making fires.
As she grew up, Beth said her love of the outdoors turned into a love of environmental science.
As Beth approached her final years at Auburn High School, she started working on the Girl Scouts Gold Award, the highest achievement a Girl Scout can receive.
Beth said she had heard about Parkerson Mill Creek in the newspaper and reflected on her love of the environment.
At first, Beth wanted to do a project to bring several churches together with tables and discuss their beliefs, but she said she did not hear back from many of the churches.
Realizing she needed to begin her project soon, she said she then set up a meeting with the Water Resources Center, where they paired her with Eve Brantley, extension specialist and associate professor in crop soil and environmental sciences.
Brantley said her program, the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, was a perfect fit for Beth because the work she wanted to accomplish would help with the ongoing project of the program to raise awareness of Parkerson Mill Creek.
Together, they came up with the idea to work on Parkerson Mill Creek.
Beth said the portion of the creek she and Brantley focused on was the part that went through campus, starting at Lem Morrison and continuing to the rugby fields.
"You could walk through the creek right now and pick up as many cigarets, bottles and Styrofoam cups as you want," Brantley said.
After taking pictures of 22 erosion sites and performing an overall stream assessment, Beth said she put the images to Google Earth and wrote a report about the erosion she found.
She said she then presented her report to Auburn Facilities Management to show them the issues of erosion, litter and bacteria.
To help raise awareness in the community, Beth said she set up tables at A-Day, CityFest and the Kappa Color Run to show citizens the effects they can have on the environment.
Beth said she then wrote a proposal, had the Gold Award Council critique her project and then after her two years and, according to Judy, over 100 hours of work was done, she presented a final report and power point to the council.
Beth said she benefited from this project because it gave her a look into her potential career path.
“This showed me what I could be dealing with in the future,” Prior said.
Beth said she learned how to take better care of the environment, and she looks forward to continuing similar work in the future.
According to Brantley, Beth's work did not stop when she finished her project. Brantley said Beth has paved the way for more and more students to become aware of the water resources the campus provides.
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