Ever appreciated the particularly pristine stretch of Huron River Dr. between Weber and Foster roads? Thank John Wilkins, who lives on Newport and for twenty-one years has been walking the nearly 1.5-mile route, picking up every piece of litter he comes across. More recently, the former director of the U-M Alumni Pep Band also has mowed the grass on the shoulder of the narrow road to make more room for joggers, bikers, and walkers like himself.

“There was one day, I saw a bag that had blown into the woods … and I just grabbed it and started picking up stuff in the bag,” Wilkins recalls. “Standard things are beer cans, beer bottles, fast food junk, and the nemesis … cigarette butts.” When he first started, Wilkins says, he’d pick up at least eighty cigarette butts all up and down the road, as well as “bottles by the hundreds.”

Since his retirement as a band director at Mumford High School in 2012, Wilkins has done his walk daily, reciting to himself the state capitals, the presidents, and even the Gettysburg address while he cleans and mows. “People have been very supportive, and acknowledged so kindly–so sincerely–how much they appreciate having a clean road,” he says.

As for the litter, “I’ve stopped being mad about it,” he says. “I’m just so proud of how it looks after.”

Has there ever been a day when he didn’t find any trash to pick up? “Never,” he says.