PVHS student volunteers clean up Trojan Park

The physical appearance of Pahrump’s Trojan Park is slowly but surely returning to its original form, thanks to the efforts of students and volunteers.

On Saturday, Dec. 4, several dozen Pahrump Valley High School students converged at the Wilson Road location to spruce up the site after a severe storm and flooding ravaged the park earlier this year.

Trojan Park, complete with a disc golf course and walking trails, was established back in 2019 by Pahrump Valley High School’s National Honor Society project, according to National Honor Society advisor and American Government teacher Tricia Martin, who spoke about the weekend cleanup project.

She noted that due to the COVID-19 outbreak, regular maintenance at the site was scaled back last year.

“The sagebrush just got to be unsightly, which I think everyone in Pahrump would agree with,” Martin said. “It just looked really bad and if you tried to go there and play disc golf, you couldn’t find the courses, so we just removed all the sagebrush, trash and debris. We now know that

leaving sagebrush on its own is like turning your back on the tide, so it’s not a good idea, because many of the bushes were three to four feet tall. We are so proud of the students because they worked about 90 minutes, and got about 50 percent of the sagebrush removed. Overall, the cleanup went splendidly and we had almost 60 people show up.”

More to come

Further, Martin said there are other additional plans in store for Trojan Park.

“We want to put up some shade and install a few volleyball courts for sand volleyball, so we plan on expanding,” she said. “Every year we’ll make it even better. We’d like to continue to improve it and see improved use of it. That’s always been kind of a sad part because we were just getting the momentum started, and the world halted. So hopefully this will be part of everybody coming out of COVID-19.”

Martin also spoke about the aftermath of the July storm which created treacherous conditions for those who wanted to visit the park.

“We also had a great deal of problems with erosion because that flood destroyed parts of it,” she said. “We had four-foot holes at the entrance, and for a small period of time, we had to have caution tape there. We got a bobcat in there over the weekend and cleaned all of that up. We’re gonna have to redo the walking path and we want to put up a directory that has a map and shows people where the holes are and an overhead view of it all. People should feel safe to come in and enjoy themselves.”

Community support sought

Due to plans being dashed because of the pandemic, Martin said next year, she would like to schedule a second grand opening for Trojan Park, with limited restrictions.

Additionally, she said members of the community will have the opportunity to support the site as a benefactor.

“Hopefully, just prior to graduation and everything else, we’ll be able to have a second grand opening. We are going to put up a board with gold plaques of people who have donated money to help in the creation and this is one of the reasons I hope to talk to you. If people from the community would like to be a benefactor and be on the benefactor board, donations are readily welcome at the Pahrump Valley High School office.”

On a final note, Martin praised the efforts of Pahrump Valley Disposal for donating a refuse container for use during the cleanup.

“They gave us one of the jumbo dumpsters which was awesome,” she said. “So we’re gonna plan another day, now that we kind of have a strategy because this is not something any of us have ever done before. We did a cleanup in March, but we just had different regulations affecting whether or not I could have that many kids together at one place. We hope to get back there in a month and finish the sagebrush. It never really got a chance to get all the way finished because COVID-19 came in.”

Contact reporter Selwyn Harris at sharris@pvtimes.com, on Twitter: @pvtimes