Havre Pride: All sorts of people help keep city tidy

Six-year-old Alexandra Miller walked the streets of Havre Saturday morning, picking up trash as part of Havre Pride's cleanup effort. She had a sense of accomplishment. "It looks real cool when it's clean," she said as she brought bags of trash back to the Havre Fire Station, the headquarters for Havre Pride. She was one of more than 50 people who were all over Havre picking up winter trash. Others were at Gary and Leo's Fresh Foods collecting used cell phones. Shriners were serving a pancake breakfast for the volunteers. Marshaling the volunteers was Kim Cripps, who has been the inspiration behind the Havre Pride program for nearly a quarter-century. She's a true believer in the cause. When she is shopping and sees someone dropping trash on the ground, she will tell them they ought to put the trash in a receptacle. If she sees young people picking up trash on the ground, she congratulates them. "When we go camping," she said, "we always leave it cleaner than we found it." She appreciates the effort of the volunteers. Scouts, senior citizens and college students were out on the streets, cleaning things up. People who collected the most trash will get a prize. And every year someone wins a prize for Piece of trash. Today, winners wi l l be announced. "One year, somebody found a wagon wheel from the 1800s," said Bonnie Bennett, who has been Cripps' assistant for many years. "But it's hard to top the year we found a meth lab," Cripps said. Not all of the trash collectors were really volunteers. "Why are you out here today," three young people were asked, as they waited in the back of a pickup, ready to be deployed. "Let's just say they are doing community service," said their adviser, Spike Magelssen, as the young people laughed. He explained that the young people were working off courtordered community service. Most were guilty of being minors in possession of alcohol. Cripps said the young people had done a great job. "I have their phone numbers," she said. "Next year I will call them because they want to volunteer."