Surprises can be great when they are well-timed, such as a great gift at a birthday party.
However, other surprises can be time consuming and dangerous. Just such a surprise greeted the Osceola Chamber Main Street Design Committee and Murray FFA volunteers a few weeks ago when they were doing some planting on the courthouse lawn flower bed across from Robinsons.
The planting project is a continuation of the one started by the design committee and Osceola FFA volunteer groups.
The morning project got started off normally with the volunteers digging out the remaining shrubs from the flower bed and preparing the holes to put the new boxwood plantings in place.
However, when digging in the flower bed, one of the Murray FFA students hit what they believed was a rock.
Project coordinator Jan Rychnovsky told the students it should be cement covering an old sewer line that was filled in years ago, according to research done at the courthouse by Osceola Chamber Main Street Director Derek Lumsden.
While digging to find the perimeter of the cement, one of the students managed to get underneath the cement and pried it open. Underneath the cement was a 36-foot deep unfilled well.
Rychnovsky alerted Clarke County Emergency Management Office and they got right into action.
The county brought a load of gravel in to fill the well, which meant that the project stopped on that part of the flower bed.
The volunteers continued on the other half of the flower bed and celebrated with a lunch at Uptown Bistro, provided by Osceola Chamber Main Street.
Rychnovsky said, “There is a lot of work to do on the bed itself now.”
Rychnovsky will be staying in touch with the Clarke County Maintenance staff to see when the work can be resumed.