Chadron State Park remains a consistent job site for TBE

The Big Event volunteers hit the trails on Saturday.
Despite gloomy weather conditions during the morning spring football game, the rain and snow stopped just in time for volunteers to head to their job sites.
About 30 students, faculty and staff headed out to Chadron State Park to help clean and clear trails of tree stumps, tree limbs and debris.
Park staff split the volunteers up into several groups and led them to job sites around the park. A group of CSC wrestlers was chosen to do the heavy lifting for the day.
The wrestlers helped load large stumps into the back of a truck and unload them in a designated area.
“We were picking up stumps all day, then drove around and helped clean up the park,” Rulon Taylor, 23, junior of Curtis, said.
Students and faculty from the justice studies department and RLOP met up at the Sawmill Shelter area. From there they split into two teams, led by Park Superintendent Gregg Galbraith and Assistant Park Superintendent, Josh May. The groups climbed steep hillsides as they helped clean up debris along the 1.8 mile Steamboat Butte Trail.
May told his group to throw any limbs and branches off of the trails, and to cut any new tree growth that would be too large for the park’s mowers to cut down.
The group led by Galbraith headed further up into the hills to clear off a newly marked trail. Following a route outlined by pink marking flags, the group of 14 cleared the trail in about an hour and a half.
“My favorite part of working was the element of surprise. We didn’t know what we were going to do, so that was fun,” Celeste Cardona, 19, freshman of Mitchell said. “We had a lot of people to get the job done fast. Volunteer work and giving back to our community is cool.”
While the justice studies department and RLOP usually help the police department during The Big Event, this year the police department didn’t have anything for them to do. The group ended up heading to the state park so they could all be together at one job site.
“We wanted our students to be together. We are a very tight group of students and faculty, so we just wanted to do stuff together,” said Justice Studies Associate Professor James Wada. “It’s kind of a retention idea as well, because we get to know the students better and the students get to know us better.”