When it comes to littering, there are no limits to what will find its way out into the desert, as anyone who has ever cleaned up a public stretch of road or land knows.

By 8 o'clock Saturday morning, April 19, Sharon Cahlan and Zulema Galindo, representing the Rotary Club's participation in the Town Clean-Up, had already found a pair of underwear, empty bottles of Tequila, and a bucket.

"They drink and then they get naked," Galindo jokingly speculated.

"The community has given so much to the Rotary, we're giving back," Cahlan answered when asked why she signed up for the event.

Cahlan and Galindo were assigned to clean up the portion of desert between Frontage Road and Highway 160 from the Frontage Road entrance to Pahrump Party Supplies.

It didn't take long for them to fill up the day-glow orange bags that lined the section of the road which would later be picked up by Pahrump Valley Disposal.

A ways further down Highway 160, closer to Mesquite Avenue, Ed Underhill led a team of five Elks volunteers.

They'd been picking up trash along the highway since 7:15 that morning, as the long line of tell-tale trash bags proved to any driver cruising along.

"We ran into some problems with the ditch here," Underhill said, pointing to where the desert sharply sloped about three feet from the shoulder. "But we got a good crew here and it's a lot of fun."

The dedicated crew members traversed the ditch and unraveled plastic bags from the dry, gnarled clutches of desert bushes, stooping to pick up paper and just about anything else you could think of that didn't belong there.

Underhill said the most interesting thing his crew found was a deck of playing cards with servicemen on them, which several members guessed dated back to the 1940s.

The Elks were responsible for the portion of road from Mesquite Avenue to Bell Vista.

There was no shortage of debris to be found closer to the center of town in the Calvada Eye, where Pahrump Arts Council members Forrest and Charlise Butler, along with three other PAC volunteers, were doing their share to spiff up the town.

Forrest Butler had even made his own stick with a nail on the end to help pick up litter caught in the trees or hard-to-reach places.

He said so far the crew had found a hose from the old drip system that used to water the Eye's trees, a pair of glasses (one wonders if they were left on the roof of a car after an eye appointment) and car parts including reflectors and pistons. "No money though," Butler said.

Butler may not have been able to line his pockets, but thanks to the various community organizations who had clean-up teams, the town's a little richer for being a bit tidier.