HHS Key Club cleans up Milk River

Thanks to a concerned Havre citizen, Havre High School Key Club members organized and took to cleaning trash Sunday afternoon from under the viaduct and Milk River Bridge.

The north side Havre citizen, Key Club advisor John Ita said, had contacted several other groups about cleaning the mess from under the bridges and nobody had done so until the Key Club agreed to do so.

Key Club International is the oldest and one of the largest service programs for high school students. Key Club is a student-led organization whose goal is to encourage leadership through service to others.

A large group of key club members - Ita estimated about 30 of the club's 45 students showed up Sunday - clad in orange, reflective vests scoured the viaduct and bridge grounds, picking up broken glass, blankets, sleeping bags, rusty pieces of metal, old tires, and anything else that didn't belong there.

"We're finding all sorts things," 10th-grader Mitch Woronik said, adding he even found nail polish.

The plan was simple, Woronik said.

"We got our people together and did it," he said. "I actually kind of enjoyed it."

School Resource and Havre Police Officer Joshua Holt was in the middle of the cleanup effort, not only cleaning, but also answering questions about found knives and whether they should or should not be picked up, and educating young minds on graffiti art.

"I was telling them all the (train) riders have a tag, and they're the same wherever they go," Holt said, referring to transients' habits of spray-painting their personal tag, or logo, wherever they go.

Three friends, all freshman - Kaitlin Morehouse, Saranina Flores and Kennedy Baily - were teaming up hoisting a bag filled with collected trash into someone's older Ford Ranger.

"I just wanna make Havre look prettier," Kennedy said.