Thirty years removed from when my pooch and I competed in obedience and two decades after sitting in the stands watching the steer ropers, 2023 brought me back to the Dawes County Fairgrounds on the north end of Chadron twice.
The fair seemed like an interesting mid-week option this past summer while in town. Bunnies were a highlight as both my children would show their rabbits soon at the Box Butte County Fair. Though a bit more compact than the layout at Hemingford, the grounds host numerous activities and events throughout any given year. Keep Chadron Beautiful is taking advantage of the location for its monthly community recycling events when the weather is (or could be) cold, wet, windy or just too cruddy. This month was the first to relocate from downtown. The 16th proved to be sunny, calm and mild so the KCB board and volunteers set up outside as usual filling one of our green Keep Alliance Beautiful trailers and two owned by Roger, and John and Theresa, respectively. If the weather would have acted like it could have just over a week before Christmas, sorting and loading would have been inside fed by a bundled up relay with bags in hand like the Jolly Old Elf himself.
I have no data for the weight of the recyclables conveyed from Chadron to KAB on this latest occasion. However, word is spreading as to how to prepare materials and when and where to take whatever will fit in everything from a few bags in a coupe to a load of appliance boxes and styrofoam in an enclosed trailer. Volume has certainly increased. Traffic in two lanes formed by a line of orange cones stayed constant this month. If anything, I assumed the switch away from the main drag would have dissuaded people on the fence.
Adding Chadron as a major spoke to our recycling center hub has helped boost volume to record numbers this year. Perhaps a little self-serving, but necessary to form a relationship, a caveat from KAB was everything must be sorted. We lack the staff and mechanization to handle tons of additional material otherwise. I offer a bit of advice while loading our trailer, but the volunteers are excellent at dividing and repackaging recyclables for transport – and sharing the lowdown with those they are unloading.
Initial public meetings bandied about other ideas. How about a single dropoff location where sorting would produce periodic loads to send south? Institutions in Chadron traveled to Alliance regularly. Send materials that way. Instead, the number of members on the KCB board swelled and the group invested in addressing public demand by being willing to “get their hands dirty” and recruit others to help.
Keep Chadron Beautiful, months ago, settled on the current format. Why does it serve their organization and residents so well? One word: fun. Snippets of conversation float in the air. This is a regular occasion to serve and be grateful for service rendered between friends, neighbors and new acquaintances. I like the atmosphere. There is a fresh scent of grass from the proverbial seed that has found fertile soil.