Sedona AZ (March 26, 2012) –  In 2009, a small group of concerned Verde Valley residents decided to try and unite the communities of Cottonwood and Sedona in an effort to address the mounting litter eyesore along Arizona State Highway 89A, a designated scenic route connecting the two areas. That same year, the group expanded its litter clean up effort to include State Route 260 between Cottonwood and the town of Camp Verde.

By late 2010, the group’s now named Road Warriors Folksville USA litter abatement effort included Arizona highways I-17 (Arizona Veterans Highway), 169, 69, and 89 in the Dewey, Prescott Valley, and Prescott areas. Three years later in 2012, Highway 89A from Cottonwood to the town of Jerome, Arizona signaled its interest in joining the Road Warriors FVUSA effort.

What caused eight taxpaying citizens to organize and effectively challenge its Arizona Department of Transportation litter abatement effort?

In 2009, the original Road Warriors realized local highway litter was increasing under the auspices of the ADOT litter abatement program. The Road Warriors investigated and discovered evidence in the ADOT Adopt-A-Highway Program (ADOT AAHP) Activity Reports that the Arizona Department of Transportation was ineffectively managing its Adopt-A-Highway Program, a litter abatement program designed to encourage citizen participation using business incentives. The Road Warriors learned that fully seventy-five per cent (75%) of the Adopt-A-Highway groups were failing to honor ADOT’s requirement to pick up litter three times per year in permitted miles. Yet all of the AAHP permittees had taxpayer funded mile post road signs, advertisements, touting their names, associations, or businesses – and ADOT planned to fund new and bigger signage for those same AAHP groups in 2012.

The Road Warriors realized that the taxpayer funded ADOT AAHP needed an attitude adjustment or needed to be eliminated. They also realized that the responsibility of change would fall to the Road Warriors. After several requests to encourage ADOT Adopt-A-Highway Program mandates be met by its permittees or face being dropped from the program, ADOT managers sent notices to the Road Warriors to cease and desist all interference with the ADOT AAHP, a program they found to be without deficiencies.

Finding no recourse working with the ADOT bureaucracy, the Road Warrior volunteers kept bagging litter along Highway 89A. They determined to be a visible effort, hoping to inspire the Highway 89A and Highway 260 ADOT AAHPs to clean their mile-long sections the required three or more times per year while raising public awareness of the Verde Valley and Arizona litter problem.

The Road Warriors contacted ADOT Highway 89A and Highway 260 permittees and explained its goal to make the permitted AAHPs role models for the Arizona Department of Transportation Adopt-A-Highway Program. Several permittees turned a deaf ear but many joined the team effort.

To further its end, between 2009 and 2012, the Road Warriors began referring to all ADOT AAHPs as residents of the “Virtual town of Folksville USA.” The original Road Warriors recognized that a virtual town provided the place for real people to park differences at the curb of civic responsibility and unite to restore beauty to Arizona highways.

The concept worked. Folksville USA and its Leaping Frogs litter events have succeeded in gaining the attention of the State of Arizona, the City of Sedona, the 1/1 CAV Fort Bliss-El Paso Texas, a Girl Scout troop in Pleasantville, New York, and many other people, organizations, and places throughout the nation.

What began as a group of eight local residents disgusted with Arizona highway litter and lack of government recourse has grown to over three hundred volunteers bagging and recycling highway litter at Folksville USA events.

Gary Chamberlain, Road Warrior and Folksville USA co-founder, cycled from coast to coast and wrote of his experiences bringing the Folksville USA anti-litter message to other states. Road Warrior Rick Baldauf was honored by a local Arizona organization for his anti-litter efforts. Folksville USA was featured on two radio shows, KYCA 1490 Prescott (Dr. Terry Lovell) and The Don Smith Show-Florida, and Phoenix FOX10 television station covered the Leaping Frogs November 2011 event from an airplane.

In 2011, the original Road Warriors finally moved the ADOT mountain. Prescott and Flagstaff ADOT Highway Maintenance Departments mowed the overgrown vegetation on highway shoulders and medians before the Folksville USA May and August events, providing a safer environment for litter pick up during rattlesnake season.

“The mowing of highways is a necessary task that the Arizona Department of Transportation had been unwilling to undertake locally,” explained Gary Chamberlain. “Mowing isn’t a landscaping issue, it is a safety issue. One example? Unchecked vegetation growth that obstructs safety reflectors on guardrails. ADOT must be held accountable to do its job.”

On March 27,  2012 the Sedona Arizona City Council will present a plaque in the name of “Folksville USA’s Road Warriors whose mission is to restore the beauty to America’s and Arizona’s highways.” The original Road Warriors want the virtual town of Folksville USA to attend the Sedona Council meeting and be recognized for its civic pride.

As Chamberlain explained, “The original Road Warriors of 2009 made it all possible but Folksville USA residents make each event a success. Cottonwood people like Don Hanks and family of Tire Pro Automotive, and Neil Dixon and crew of Reese & Sons Tire. Autistic adults who sort and recycle every single bag that Folksville USA collects at Rusty’s Morningstar Ranch. Cornville’s Windmill Gardens, Home Depot in Cottonwood-Prescott-Prescott Valley, and every single man, woman, and child who pulled on gloves and helped restore the beauty to Arizona and America are Folksville USA.”

For the record, the 2009 original Road Warriors-Folksville USA are Patricia (Pat) McQuade-Cornville; Beth Cady-Cottonwood; Diane Gallager-Cornville; Valarie Moore-Cottonwood; Rick Baldauf-Sedona; Co-Founders FVUSA, Greg Penrod-Flagstaff and Gary Chamberlain-Cornville. The 2009 original Road Warrior recyclers were Cornville, Arizona residents Carole Lamb Jean, Connie Morgan, Jim Jean, Charlene Van Allen, Johnnie Wilson, and Ed Helgeson.

Be sure to visit the virtual town of FolksvilleUSA.com while traveling Arizona and America’s beautiful highways. Park your car at the curb and grab a free litter bag.

For the best in Sedona news and views, read SedonaEye.com daily! Reach 4000+ subscribers with your ads and articles! We are growing daily!