Taking out the trash

CLOVIS - Saturday's Great American Cleanup in Clovis featured a bit of a bathroom theme as a toilet and a toilet seat, found separately miles apart, were among the strangest items volunteers cleaned off the streets on Saturday.

Members of a class from Mesa Elementary found the toilet, along with a Buzz Lightyear toy and a dollar bill for one lucky student, according to fifth-graders Teagan Campbell, Tehya Moralez and James Tudtud.

Teacher Lisa Perkins said 16 of her 21 students took part in Saturday's cleanup.

"I enjoyed it because I asked my class, 'hey do ya'll want to do this as a class?' and they were like 'yeah, yeah' so it made me feel good that they wanted to come out and help the community," Perkins said.

Saturday's Great American Cleanup is one of two events put on by the city of Clovis each year to rid the community's streets and parks of garbage.

Assistant City Manager Claire Burroughes said 16 teams and a total of 210 people took part in the cleanup on Saturday filling 289 large trash bags, compared to 199 volunteers and 382 trash bags last year.

Angie Mata and her group from Cannon Air Force Base found the toilet seat while they were cleaning up Brady Avenue, as well as a bra and gloves.

Mata said this was the third cleanup event she has participated in and members of Cannon continue to come back each year to help the community because they live here too.

"Just to give back to the community here," Mata said of the reason she took part in Saturday's cleanup. "We live in the Clovis and Portales area so they help us out whenever we need it and we help them out too."

Victoria Mani from Cannon's 9th Aircraft Maintenance Unit (AMU) echoed similar sentiments.

"We did it to make Clovis a nicer place," Mani said.

Her daughters joined the cause as well due to the competition aspect of the cleanup.

"At first I didn't want to go but then when I heard that there was a competition I wanted to go," said Iris Mani, age 12.

Her competitive spirit paid off because Cannon's 9th AMU finished in second place after filling 36 trash bags.

About 10 people from Curry County finished in first place after filling 64 trash bags and were rewarded with a plaque and a large bowl of candy.

"It was good, we had a lot of fun," Curry County Administrative Services Coordinator Doria Rey said. "We were out by the dump so I don't know if that gives us an unfair advantage because of all the wind but yeah we had a good team and we had fun."

Rey said the county did not find anything too interesting - "pretty run of the mill garbage out there" - though they did have fun trying to build a car from scratch after finding a tire, a bumper and another car part.

One potentially lucrative piece of trash was an engagement ring Sam DeJesus found while he cleaning up the baseball fields near Hillcrest Park with about 10 kids from the Cub Scouts.

"I don't know if it's real or not but it's interesting," DeJesus said.

Apparently the ring's owner was not having as much fun as the volunteers who cleaned up Clovis on Saturday.

"The marriage is off," Iris Mata remarked.