Whether he’s searching for lost treasures, writing investigative articles for journalism, or simply working on a science project, Evan McKinley, junior, knows how to put effort in.

“I like to research lost treasures,” McKinley said. “Granted the odds that I’ll actually find and or keep anything are slim, but I think it’s fun to look at the old libraries and check the records of something. “Actually a few times I have charted out pretty much exactly where such and such gold allegedly is. That depends on if the gold exists, if it’s been carried away before, if I have a powerful enough metal detector and by far the most important, if I’m allowed to get to it.

Being able to get to the lost treasure proves time and time again to be a problem for McKinley.

“I was doing some research on this alleged pirate gold in Camp Westwind,” McKinley said, “and after doing a bunch of background research I managed to find a gold mine of information at the county historical museum where it turns out that it is pirate treasure of Sir Francis Drake. The only problem is that it’s private property and it’s under fifteen feet of wet sand. Good luck ever getting to that.”

McKinley once put so much effort into getting a single measurement for a science project that he and his father risked their lives.

“I’m apparently the only person who’s risked his life for a science fair project,” McKinley said. “My goal was measure the depth of a well in the ocean. The problem was that it had to be a low, preferably negative, tide, it couldn’t be on a school day because it’s about a three hour drive there and three hour drive back and it also had to be during daylight.

Even with all these restrictions, McKinley attempted this feat five times.

“First time I was sick and we couldn’t go at all,” McKinley said. “Second attempted time there was a storm surge making it too dangerous. Third time I got lots of data, but they were all drastically different measurements. The fourth time I idiotically screwed up and got the tide schedules for the wrong year.”

After these four failures, McKinley and his dad got ready for their fifth and final trip to the ocean.

“Fifth time, I go right up there,” McKinley said. “My dad was about ten feet in front of the well and I’m about ten feet behind him. I’m about to do the measurement when a giant wave hit the rocks, went up, and bashed into us.”

The wave that hit them was bad enough to badly injure them both.

“My dad pulled a huge muscle in his back,” McKinley said. “Thankfully he was wearing a life jacket. He sliced part of his hand open. I got bashed into a rock, landing on my knees, and the waves pushed me down and forward along the rocks. I had these slits on my knees.”

After all of this, McKinley still didn’t get the measurements he needed.

“Salt water was getting in our wounds a lot, it hurt a lot. I dropped the rope in the well, but I’m sure as not going back there. I’m willing to pay the price of a new rope and anchor if I don’t have to go back out there. So my dad offers to go out there and get one measurement by himself. He went back out there and everything went fine.”

Written by Aidan Whittemore