Ulysses students continue Adopt-a-Highway project for third year

Kansas Department of Transportation

A group of Ulysses High School seniors with an interest in bringing their community together to help keep Grant County highways clean and improve the environment have chosen KDOT’s Adopt-a-Highway program for the project management component of their service learning project.  The project management component can be broken down into smaller short-term goals with varying responsibilities which help the students develop communication and team-building skills.

In the fall of 2017, a group of three Ulysses High School seniors chose the Adopt-a-Highway program for their service learning project.  Adopt-A-Highway is a highway clean-up program that was started by KDOT in 1989 to recognize groups, organizations, businesses and individuals who were interested in volunteering to keep Kansas highways clean and litter free.  

 “Each year the students have worked to rebuild and continue the program in Grant County.  They start with visiting organizations that have previously participated and by presenting the program to new organizations.  This year’s group will work to increase the number of organizations adopting and hope to increase the number of pick-ups completed”, said Lisa Knoll, Public Affairs Manager for the Kansas Department of Transportation, District Six.

This year five Ulysses high school students will be working on the project in Grant County including Autumn Deyoe, Zach Feldman, Brandon Jones, Jett Moyer and Brendan Stejskal.  According to Deyoe, she chose this program to help groups get involved in their community and thought this would be a great way to do that. Moyer says he chose the program to learn more about how it affected the environment, adding “It is important to keep the roads clean because of the affect the trash has on wildlife and our environment.”  

If you are interested in learning more about Adopt-A-Highway in Grant County or would like to schedule a presentation or a pick-up, contact Autumn Deyoe at autumndeyoe@student.ulysses.org or Lisa Knoll with KDOT at lisa.knoll@ks.gov or 620-765-7080.