Waldorf students clean up Pilot Knob State Park

by Conrad Bascom
Lake Mills Graphic
A wide broad section of Waldorf University’s student body population participated in cleaning up Pilot Knob State Park, Saturday, Sept. 22. A smattering of Waldorf clubs and athletic teams volunteered to aid the Iowa DNR and park officials with the initiative. A veritable caravan of hand-me-down cars, used trucks, and Waldorf vans ferried the willing-and-able-bodied students to and from Pilot Knob. In all, an estimated 60 students and faculty advisors were present (despite the fall chilliness of the morning).
After some opening words of guidance and caution from one of the organizers and the on-site park ranger, maps were handed out and a mass exodus of students could be seen marching to the farthest reaches of the park with rakes, paint brushes, doggie bags, and wheelbarrows in tow. Students and faculty repaired and repainted outhouses; scrubbed down grills and swept up fire pits; picked up litter and doggie droppings on the trails; and picked up a veritable funeral pyre of fallen sticks and branches throughout the park.
After two hours of labor dispersed about the park grounds, students returned to the campgrounds in groups of twos and fours—cheery-faced and with a rumbling in their stomachs. The organizers of the event provided volunteers with a generous spread of deli sandwiches, chips, and cookies to munch on at the picnic tables littered about the campground—a well-deserved repast before reentering collegiate life and interminable test prep.
On the way back from the event, one of the trail crews chatted about the distance they had covered during the clean-up. Waldorf student Kassidy Bunger estimated that: “We hiked for two or three miles . . . ?”
Jennet Hojanazarova, an international student from Turkmenistan and one of her fellow workers, referred to her phone pedometer and chimed in: “We hiked a total of five kilometers, actually, 5.6 kilometers.”
Sara Vettleson-Trutza, president of Waldorf’s Biology Club, joined in: “Oh, so that’s around three miles.”
For freshman and Latvian-international student, Diana Dzasezheva, 2018’s annual Pilot Knob Clean-Up provided the international student with a continuation of her education on the United States’ great State and National Parks, as well as ample opportunities to practice her nature photography skills.
The two international students present in the vehicle gave Pilot Knob State Park high marks in cleanliness. Hojanazarova had this to say: “We only found one piece of litter in the entire time we were hiking the trails. So it means that people are not throwing trash on the ground while hiking Pilot Knob. I would have to say that Pilot Knob is a comparatively clean park.”
The people of the surrounding counties can be rest assured that the international delegation present at the Clean-Up found Pilot Knob to be pristine and largely untouched by litter. It’s unsurprising that Pilot Knob is comparatively cleaner than other parks, as it seems logical that a park that is routinely cleaned and repaired by caring members of the community would be. This is one of those rare stories that all involved can be happy about. Good job, Hancock and Winnebago Counties; good job, Iowa DNR and Pilot Knob State Park; good job, Waldorf. Keep it up.