This week, the student body of Moapa Valley High School celebrates “M Week.” This is a school tradition going back nearly ninety years. It celebrates the creation of the big white ‘M’ on the steep slope of the Mormon Mesa east of Overton. This symbol of Pirate pride is still tenderly revered and maintained to this day.
Though “M Week” is filled with a variety of student festivities in the halls at the high school, there is very little still done that resembles the pageantry of past decades.
Even so, members of the graduating class each year usually get together on their own time, energy and transportation, to travel up to the top of the mesa and put an annual whitewash on the historied letter ‘M’.
What follows are recollections from several people who were MVHS students at the time when the ‘M’ was first formed on the hillside.
The recollections of Orville Perkins were submitted to the Progress by Lloyd Whitmore who, over the years, had received a number of local history stories penned by Perkins; this among them.
The other recollections appear on page 199-200 of the book “Muddy Valley Reflections Vol. 1” by Beezy Tobiasson and Georgia Hall. They are reprinted here with permission of the authors.
Recollections of Orville Perkins who was in the 1935 MVHS Graduating Class. Orville passed away in 1989.
The school year of 1928-29 had come to a close. Principal Wadsworth said, “When you see your freshman graduate, it is time to move on.”
Not only was the principal leaving, but the School Superintendent was also being replaced. This meant a refreshing new climate for students and townsfolk alike.
In the time span before the days of the BLM, while one was driving; especially through the west; when one drew near a town a large letter could usually be spotted on a nearby hill. This meant that there must be a school nearby. These letters were carefully tended each year, always with a fresh coat of whitewash. This activity would brighten up the shining hillside symbols for all to see and be proud of.
The Moapa Valley High School, up to this time, had sadly neglected to have such a project. But this new school blood was about to change all of that.
In the spring of 1930, the student body, under the leadership of their president, Thresa Jones, voted to start a giant letter ‘M’ on the mesa east of the school. Committees were elected with Bruce Lyman and Clyde Perkins more or less in charge of the project.
Just how to lay out a block ‘M’ on the steep hellside had to be figured out. IT had to be large enough to be seen with ease, yet small enough to be manageable to maintain.
Several people went over to the slope of the mesa while others stayed behind and watched from the upstairs of the tall, two-storied school building with high-powered field glasses. After several trips back and forth, it was determined what sie the ‘M’ should be and where it should go.
April 1, 1930 was to be “M Day”; for that was the day set to start to build the ‘M’. The whole school turned out and there was much work to be done. It took a mighty lot of rocks to form a letter that size.
At last, it did start to look like something to be proud of. At the least, the outside fringe of the letters were outlined.
The classes of future years would finish it and set a tradition. Each spring after that, had one day set aside to be “M Day”: a day to brighten up the letter with whitewash for all the world to see.
Today it is quite easy to get to the ‘M’. But that was not always the case. At first, to drive an auto up there, one had to go up to where the highway crosses and then drive all the way down to the desired spot
In the early days, most of the students were hauled out to the Angell Place (at the foot of the mesa) by the school bus. Then they would walk from there up to the ‘M’.
“M Day” evening saw each class put on a skit or program out in front of the school. The climax came after dark, at the end of the program, with the lighting of the M.
It was always a day to be proud of as stated by principal Rulon T. Shepard and echoed by Superintendent F. Edgar Mineer on that first “M Day.”
It was a milestone in the history of the school.
Recollections of Clyde Perkins
In about 1928, when we took the Pirates for a class emblem, we started rumbling about an ‘M’.
Probably the biggest driving force for doing this was the ‘D’ for Dixie College in St. George. It had been there for years. I remember seeing it as a kid. IT was all lit up and it made a big impression on all of us. So it was the Dixie D and some of the school teachers which motivated us to put the ‘M’ on the Mormon Mesa.
I just decided one day to quit talking about it and do something. I got ahold of several of the students; one of which was Teresa Jones. Teresa was the student body president that year. There were just a few of us that first year and the following year the entire school participated.
It took two or three forays out there on the Mormon Mesa to finally get the job done. Leonard Marshall got his dad’s team and wagon and we went up to the to of the mesa.
Johnny Lago had an old Model T and he managed to get it up there too.
Others included Bruce Lyman, Emerson Leavitt and myself. I think Kennard was the agricultural teacher and A.E. Johnson was the art teacher. Someone had to do a little bit of survey work. I don’t think we were competent, but we laid it out and hauled some rock. That was the start of “M Day” and the ‘M’.
Recollections of Bruce Lyman
We went out with horses and we took quite a bit of newspaper with us. We put the newspaper down where we figured the ‘M’ should be. we put rocks down on the paper to keep it from blowing away.
When we got back to the schoo, we looked at it with our field glasses and ‘situated the situation.’
That’s the only part I remember because I graduated in 1930.
Recollections of Emerson Leavitt
Once it was laid out we took that wagon and went up to haul the white wash and water up there. It was a bad road then. The road was all full of sand. IT was heavy going. Them old horses were soft and they gave out before we got up the hill. We ended up pakcing everything up to the mesa ourselves. The rocks we used, we got from the mesa. We rolled them down from the top.
The first year we just outlined the ‘M’. The next year we went back to fill it in and white wash it.
The second year, the whole school went and participated. We went out to Angell Spring and walked from there up to Mormon Mesa. We packed two 10 gallon cans of water from Angell Spring to mix with white wash.
