Warren students pitch in

650 spend a day helping out in 47 area places

By Kate York, kyork@mariettatimes.com
For the third year of Warren High School’s Community Service Day, a group of students took their sprucing-up skills to a part of their community they never even knew existed.

Among the 47 sites in Washington County where more than 650 students donated a day’s worth of time and labor Wednesday was Houghland Cemetery near Barlow, a burial site that began to be used soon after 1800 and is now out of sight, about 400 feet behind Lighthouse Baptist Church on a wooded trail.

“I don’t think any of the students knew this was here,” said Warren senior Alyssa Konz, 18. “I saw the date 1776 on one grave. That’s (Revolutionary) War time—it’s pretty cool.”

But the students weren’t there just to enjoy history but to try to restore it.

With the help of members of the Sons of the American Revolution, five students spent Wednesday creating an archaeology grid system, measuring, photographing and documenting the location of all the visible stones and markers and scrubbing dirt and fungus from weathered headstones to try to determine the names of those buried.

“We’re hoping that next year we can duplicate the grid and start to do some prodding where we can find stone fragments,” said Jean Yost, president of the Marietta chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution. “We think there are a lot of stones that are just under the surface now. So we don’t know how many people are really buried here.”

The stones already recovered include markers for veterans of the War of 1812 and the Revolutionary War.

“It’s sad to see that soldiers are buried here and it hasn’t been kept up,” said Konz. “Everyone should be respected when they’ve passed away. It’s a good thing they’re doing here, and we’re all happy to help.”

The Houghland Cemetery project was one of two historical projects the high school students took on for Community Service Day, with more students spending the day at the library helping to digitize Washington County’s 1810 census information for an online research site. Washington County is the only county in Ohio with the original information, with the rest lost in a fire, Yost said.

Further from the school, students spread out into communities including Marietta, Little Hocking, Cutler, Layman, Bartlett and Parkersburg to do everything from clean windows and pews at churches to painting at the Betsey Mills Club.

“It’s a day we’re pretty proud of,” said Warren High School guidance counselor Janet Chase. “So many things are taught in a classroom but here, we really want to teach them about giving to their community and giving time.”

Junior Beth Lane, 16, said her exhaustion at the end of the day would remind her just how much she had given, but that it was all worth it.

“I’ve worked really hard, and I think I’ll be really tired at the end of the day,” said Lane, taking a break from removing grass and planting flowers at Bartlett Elementary. “But it will be blended with happiness because I’ve worked on this community.”

Junior Sky Wood, who spent the day washing fire trucks and ambulances at the Wesley Township Volunteer Fire Department, said he was surprised by how much he enjoyed giving his time.

“It’s a good idea to give back, but I don’t usually do that much volunteer work,” he said. “But it’s better like this, to have all your peers around. It’s work but it’s also fun.”

Fire department treasurer Lucy King said in the three years the department has been a Community Service day site, she’s seen group after group of students with good attitudes and strong work ethics.

“They do a fantastic job,” she said. “Anything that needs to be done, they’re willing to do. You hear so many bad things about teenagers that it’s really great to work with a bunch that belies that, and these kids really do.”