Nov 13, 2022
SHEPHERDSTOWN ROTARY CONTINUES
HIGHWAY CLEANUP TRADITION
More than a dozen members of the Shepherdstown Rotary Club turned out on Saturday, November 12, for the Club's 35th annual fall highway cleanup along Route 230 south of Shepherdstown.
In all, they collected 18 bags of trash.
The accompanying photo shows some of the participants. They are, from left to right: Adam Thomas, Stephen Choi, Steve Campbell, Fred D'Alauro, Sean Murtagh, Bill Howard, Keith Carter, Teri Biebel, and Austin Slater. Not pictured but participating were Rick Caruso, Carol Hill, Dave Miljour, Daan Vreugdenhil, and Jennifer Wabnitz.
Jefferson County Sheriff's Reserves Lieutenant Vincent Edwards helped guide traffic around the cleanup crew.
The Club was founded in 1987, and it has been conducting this cleanup twice a year since then, every spring and fall. The cleanup is focused on the two-mile section of Route 230 from the rail crossing in Shepherdstown to the Y intersection with Flowing Springs Road.
The cleanup itself began in 1985. A local couple, Conrad ("Connie") Hammann and his wife Mary Ann, initiated their own twice-a-year cleanups of this stretch of Route 230 that year in response to an effort by two other local individuals, Polly Hockensmith and Peggy Sharp, to do something about the area's most littered byways.
Mr. Hammann was a founding member of the Shepherdstown Rotary Club, and at his urging the Club quickly took over the Route 230 cleanup as one of its first community projects. Mr. Hammann coordinated the cleanup for the Club every year afterwards until he passed away in March 2015. Club Secretary Rick Caruso has coordinated the events since that time.
The State of West Virginia established its Adopt-a-Highway program in the late 1980s, and the Shepherdstown Rotary Club's cleanup was immediately recognized by that program. It is believed to be the oldest, continuously running Adopt-a-Highway cleanup in the state.