Beach cleanup turns sunshiny, gathers over 1 1/2 tons of trash
BY PHIL REYNOLDS SOUTH JETTY REPORTER

STAFF PHOTO BY PHIL REYNOLDS Out of sight ... Two shiny new golf balls are outside the range of vision of a pair of students combing the beach in Port Aransas as part of the beach cleanup held Saturday, April 26.

Weather may have kept some potential cleaners away, but the 148 who showed up on Saturday, April 26, on what had promised to be a dreary weekend morning still managed to collect more than 1 ½ tons of trash from Mustang and San Jose islands.

"We were expecting closer to 250 (volunteers)," said Bruce Reynolds, Port Aransas coordinator for the Adopt-A-Beach cleanup. "One group of elementary students from Ingleside sent me an e-mail apologizing; they thought the weather was too bad."

They didn't realize what they were missing. After early morning rains and wind, Saturday turned out to be sunny and mild along the 5 ½ miles of beach the volunteers worked.

Despite the Ingleside cancellation, most of the cleaners were students, Reynolds said. The largest group was 40 from Goliad, who arrived in a school bus and other vehicles; the Eastfield College Science Club from Dallas brought the second-largest number, with 34. They worked San Jose Island under instructors Carl Knight and Jeff Hughes, with help from J.R. Jones, a former Eastfield College student who is now a science teacher in Corpus Christi (see related story).

The Goliad group spent part of Saturday morning digging out one of their pickup trucks, which became mired in soft sand in I.B. Magee Jr. Beach Park. The students' spirits seemed undampened, however.

The beach cleanup was sponsored by the Texas General Land Office (GLO) and coordinated by Keep Port Aransas Beautiful, with help from backers at the Port Aransas Chamber of Commerce-Tourist Bureau, Coca- Cola, HEB Food Stores, Fisherman's Wharf, the Family Center IGA, Waste Management and the Omni Hotel in Corpus Christi.

The Omni Hotel? Yep, said Reynolds: They baked all the cookies offered to participants at the Fred Rhodes Memorial Pavilion at noon Saturday, after the official cleanup ended. The diners also had hot dogs, chips and drinks provided by other sponsors.

Each year, the GLO asks him for the most unusual item picked up on the beach, Reynolds said. This year, it was a flow meter from an offshore oil rig.

"Nobody knows how it got here or where it came from," he said.

The most numerous item, as usual, were "about 14 zillion cigarette butts," Reynolds said.

"I have no idea how that many cigarette butts get on the beach," he said.

Keep Port Aransas Beautiful will not hold its regularly-scheduled meeting in May, officials said.