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March 29, 2024 5:27 am
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Time-honored Tradition

By VERNON ROBISON

Moapa Valley Progress

MVHS senior Justin Paystrup passes a bucket down the slope as part of a bucket brigade in bringing whitewash to the ‘M’ on the mesa during a project held on Friday evening. PHOTO BY VERNON ROBISON/Moapa Valley Progress.

Members of the Moapa Valley High School class of 2017 got together late on Friday afternoon to engage in an annual tradition that is nearly nine decades running. It was time, once again, to whitewash the great letter ‘M’ that stands above Overton on the steep, rocky hillside of the Mormon Mesa as an emblem of school pride.

The ‘M’ has been there since the spring of 1930 when a group of high school kids at that time took significant pains to set it into the hillside. Every spring, in the 87 years since, the graduating seniors of each class have made their way up to this isolated spot.
This year would be no different. Thirty students from the class of 2017 got together on Friday at about 5:00 pm to fulfill their part in this annual collective effort.

In decades past, students were transported to the site by school bus, even during a school day, to participate in this activity. But painting the ‘M’ has long ago ceased from being an “official” school activity. Modern liability concerns put a stop to such things long ago.

Abby Morgan tosses whitewash on the ‘M’ during an annual project involving the MVHS senior class. PHOTO BY VERNON ROBISON/Moapa Valley Progress.

Still, the tradition has proven valuable enough to find a way to continue all the same. Nowadays the kids organize the activity all on their own. They schedule and plan it themselves. It is all done on their own time, far outside of school hours. They arrange their own transportation to the site and gather their own supplies to do the job.

This year’s whitewash project worked like clockwork. A caravan of about a dozen vehicles could be seen at about 5:30 pm, climbing up the Mormon Mesa Road dugway above Perkins Field Airport. Once reaching the top, this dusty line-up made a sharp right turn onto a narrow road and travelled south along the west edge of the mesa.

Two pickup trucks among the vehicles carried three 55 gallon barrels full of water and three heavy bags of lime, a white powder for mixing whitewash.
The line of vehicles slowly wound its way south for about three miles until it was positioned just above the ‘M’. The vehicles parked there and the teens scrambled out and headed toward a overlook point. Looking down over the edge, they could see a steep, rough trail leading to the ‘M’ painted on the hillside below.

Splattered with whitewash, members of the MVHS Class of 2017 get together at the top of the mesa for a photo after working together to whitewash the ‘M’ on the hillside above Overton. PHOTO BY VERNON ROBISON/Moapa Valley Progress.

In no time at all, the water barrels had been lowered to the ground and brought to the edge of the mesa. The lime was mixed into the water with a shovel. Then a bucket brigade was formed.
This lineup extended from the large water barrels, over the edge of the mesa and down about 100 feet to the top of the huge white letter. Smaller buckets full of whitewash were passed down one by one, sloshing the milky white liquid onto their carriers each time they changed hands.

The work was efficient and well executed. Each person played an important role. The members of the brigade each balanced themselves carefully on the steep rocky trail, just trying to maintain equilibrium while passing down the full buckets and returning the empty ones to the top for refilling.

Only one of the buckets was ever dropped and got away from the team. It rolled slowly past the bucket brigade members, just out of reach, and down the steep slope, bouncing over the ‘M’ and on down, coming to a rest far down the hillside. There it stayed.
At the bottom end of the lineup, a group of about half a dozen students were spread out and tossing the whitewash liberally onto the hillside ‘M’.

MVHS senior Nathaniel Brill empties a bucket of whitewash on the M on the steep slope of the Mormon Mesa on Friday evening. PHOTO BY VERNON ROBISON/Moapa Valley Progress.

The surface of the letter is hard and smooth with the many decades of annual lime application accompanied by a relentless daily baking of the desert sun on its surface. This year’s class worked hard to make sure that the 2017 layer they were adding was well applied.

The teens worked remarkably fast in the late afternoon sun. All three barrels of white-wash were emptied onto the hillside within about 40 minutes. Then the members of the bucket brigade all scrambled back to the top to survey their work together for a moment.
With faces, arms, hands and clothing splattered liberally with whitewash, the youth proudly gathered for a group photo to memorialize their experience.

Then they all piled back into their vehicles and headed down the dusty road and back into the valley.

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1 thought on “Time-honored Tradition”

  1. Denise Stoesser

    Thank you, senior class of 2017!! I appreciate the hard work, commitment and dedication given to the task of maintaining the M. You rock!!

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