Page 8 - Sanger Herald 3-21-19 E-edition

SANGER HERALD 8A THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2019
Sometimes it takes a village ... a helicopter ... and 123 gallons of paint
Photo credits
Dawn Pearson, student group
Ron Scott, helicopter group
Dick Sheppard, S on Campell Mountain
Herald staff report
Sanger's symbolic "S" on Campbell Mountain got a much needed coat of paint on March 16 thanks to 37 stu- dent and 19 adult volunteers, a helicopter and 123 gallons of paint.
Sanger High School's ac- tivities director Ronnie Scott who pulled all the parts to- gether recounted the adven- tureforthe Herald.
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Some of the boulders are so
large they would be as tall as a single story house.
Our guess is that the “S” is
60x150 feet. Just massive.
It couldn’t have been done without the 37 students who represented a wide variety of
groups at Sanger High. Special thanks to those who have already contributed financially and those who are still willing to help pay for
supplies.
The students were chaper-
oned by Jon Tillotson, Dawn Pearson, Claire Tirapelle, Joaquin Zamora and off duty paramedics Levi Howlett and Kyle Young.
They all climbed the moun- tain.
Romeo Garza and his four employees from Ro's Precise Painting Inc. were helicop- tered up the mountain by local businessman John Arabian.
Sanger High School prin- cipal Dan Chacon and school board president Pete Filippi were then flown up to serve as spotters.
I was then flown up holding the spray rig out the open he- licopter door, resting it on the skids.
Jim Karle, Eduardo Mar- tinez and Ricky Rodriguez stayed at the Reedley airport to load the helicopter with the
five gallon buckets, paint sup- plies, water and snacks.
I was at the landing zone on the mountain to receive all the items.
It probably took 10 trips to get it all up.
John then took Eduardo and Ricky up to help and to spot to make sure the "S" was com- pletely covered with paint.
Jim drove the truck to the base of the hill. The truck would later receive all the empty paint cans, the litter we removed and other items that we had to get down the mountain.
The students hauled every- thing down the mountain.
John then flew down to pick up Jim. That scared away the 60 or so cows that had sur- rounded my truck - and licked the heck out of it.
That morning the students had arrived in packs. They helped haul paint and supplies from the helicopter landing area uphill about 200 yards to the S.
Graffiti got covered up with either white or earth tone paint. None remained on or around the S when we were done.
We also picked up all the trash that had somehow accu- mulated up there.
We sent the students down while Romeo and his crew fin- ished perfecting the S.
We finally left the mountain about 3:30 in the afternoon, feeling really good about the way it turned out.
We used about 108 gallons of white and 15 gallons of earth tone paint.
Student Volunteers
Alexa Ortiz, Adriana Banegas, Javier Arevalo, Maddie Viau, Jacob Lopez, Dylan Schmidt, Alexis Miller, Alexa Martinez, Jacqui Mares, Emily Henry, Emma Pena, John Pena, Ma- rissa Castillo, Grace Weber, Ellie Ochs, Haley Marshall, Rachel Pimentel, Maarten Kool, Alissa Ortega, Christian Delano, Phillipine Sakkers, Julius Kern, Steven Gomez, Leah Tillotson, Emily Perez, Jaden Luna, Bennett Frost, Susanna Ellis, Gregory Gon- zalez, Brent Pinney, Jakob Ontiveros, Adrian Mendoza, Zorawar Khila, Luke Hock- ersmith, Joey Rodriguez, Eu- nique Carter and Kylee Greer
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