Marvin Willis

Marvin Willis Band Director/Teacher

Marvin Willis Band Director - Teacher

In another personnel matter, Netterville also said the district would begin a search for a replacement for Band Director Marvin Willis, who had submitted his resignation last week.

Marvin Willis Band Director/Teacher mwillis@weimarisd.org

Marvin Willis

Marvin Willis, director of Clear River Advocates, said their group also monitors that area and others where trash and litter gather.He said volunteers with the group have pulled just about everything out of the river, including dead animals, a baby bed and car parts.

"There's just so many people, and it accumulates, and you don't have somebody out in the river every day like you need," Willis said.

Clear River Advocates sponsors the annual river parade, which helps fund its cleanup efforts, public education program and other projects that the organization initiates.Willis said the goal is to someday raise enough money to hire a full-time employee who could oversee community service workers to clean up the river.

He said last year's annual river parade raised about $900 for clean-up efforts.This year's parade is scheduled for Aug. 19, and the group already is seeking volunteers to help.

"There's plenty of trash, and there's plenty of limbs that we get out of the river.We stay pretty busy," Willis said.

Trash in the river comes from lots of sources, he said.It blows in from the area highways, it can blow out of the back of garbage trucks and it comes from tributaries and other sources up river, Willis said.

Places like Legion Crossing become gathering spots for garbage and need to be cleaned out regularly, he said.

"We go in every once in a while and clean it up, but it comes back in a few days," Willis said.

"At one point, we had over 400 people," said Marvin Willis, director of Clear River Advocates, a 10-member group who organized the parade.
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Everyone was a winner at the event, Willis said.All parade participants received a ribbon.Drawings throughout the day awarded door prizes and cash to several members of the audience.At the end of the day, however, even those items that were being sold were given away.

"We gave all the T-shirts away in the end," Willis said."People need to know, when they come to one of our events, we're going to have things to give away."

Like last year, he said, the event was a success.

"We will have a Third Annual River Parade," Willis said.

In the meantime, however, he said Clear River Advocates is seeking more community volunteers to fill a variety of positions, from office workers to those interested in helping to plan and organize upcoming events.

"The parade is about getting people down to the river," said organizer Marvin Willis, director of Clear River Advocates, a 10-member group whose goal is keeping the Guadalupe clean.

Funds generated from the parade will pay for garbage bags used in cleanup efforts, public education and other projects that the organization initiates.

Willis will serve as master of ceremonies for the parade, which begins at 11 a.m.The entry fee for floats is $10, with the entry deadline extending until 11 a.m. Saturday.

"We'll take anybody in the parade that wants to participate and take entries up until the last moment - as long as they're in by 11 a.m.," Willis said.The parade begins at the boat ramp behind Chili's, where the floats will be placed in the water starting at 9 a.m.The route will follow along the Guadalupe, down to a spot behind the Family Sports Center on Guadalupe Street, called the Guadalupe Pool, he said.
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The idea for the CRA organization started with the Willis family and their friends, Willis said.

As regular recreational users of the Guadalupe, they were concerned with the amount of garbage found along the banks and in the river.Joined by their friends, the Willis family started the CRA group.

"There's people along the highways cleaning up," Willis said."So why isn't there someone cleaning up the river?"

It's not easy to recruit volunteers to pick up trash on a regular basis, and Willis said the organization is looking for new members who have the same belief that the Guadalupe River is an invaluable community asset.

"People get tired of going to the river and picking up trash," Willis said."I don't.I was raised this way."

Willis said river cleanup is now being issued as community service hours assigned by justices of the peace.But he hopes the parade will bring more people to the river and more attention to the importance of keeping it clean.

"The more time people spend down there, the cleaner it's going to be," Willis said.