Cibola County Commissioner and City of Grants Code Enforcement Officer Robert Windhorst has lived in Cibola County for about 10 years. He and his family moved to the area in 2011 and have been here ever since. Windhorst has been a commissioner for the county for about four and a half years and the code enforcement officer for about six and a half years. Throughout his time in these positions Windhorst has developed a pressing desire to make Cibola County one of the cleanest counties in the state of New Mexico; he has started many cleanup initiatives trying to make that happen.
It all started when Windhorst and his family first moved to the area and attended the annual Fourth of July parade. Windhorst’s wife noticed that after the parade, there was trash left everywhere, all over the streets and sidewalks. When the opportunity to become the city’s code enforcement officer appeared, Windhorst took it. The first thing his wife said to him was that he needed to do something about the parade and the trash left over from it. From that point forward, Windhorst stepped into a role in which cleaning up the area was one of his top priorities.
One of the first cleanup initiatives that Windhorst started was gathering up volunteers to walk in the parade and clean up trash along the way. He even purchased T-shirts for all of the participants that said, Take Pride in Grants. This parade cleanup has been a tradition ever since, except for last year due to COVID-19 and the cancellation of the parade. According to Windhorst, he has a lot of energy, so he also has a lot of internal motivation to do cleanups by himself and with his family. During his free time, Windhorst will choose a street corner, an entire street, or a general area to focus on to clean up. “I try to clean up at least ten bags of garbage a week,” said Windhorst. Windhorst and his family also play a little game in which every time they go for a visit to the mountains, they will bring trash bags along with them and they aren’t allowed to leave until the bags are full.
Aside from his own personal cleanup adventures, Windhorst has also helped organize a number of official cleanup events throughout the years, spanning all across Cibola County. Different cleanup locations have included San Fidel, San Rafael, Cubero, Seboyeta, San Mateo, Grants, Milan, and so on. Now, the saying on the T-shirt has evolved into Take Pride in Cibola County.
For some of the larger cleanup projects, Windhorst has arranged for trash bins and dumpsters to be brought in, as well as a backhoe. According to Windhorst, volunteers usually include other city employees that like to clean up regularly, community members, and sometimes even individuals that the courts send over to put in their community service hours. “It gives people an opportunity to pay back to the city for the crimes that they’ve committed, and I think it’s a good thing to do,” said Windhorst. According to Windhorst, Northwestern New Mexico Solid Waste Authority Director and McKinley County Commissioner Billy Moore has also been a big help with the cleanups, often providing dumpsters for some of the more involved projects.
“I think it’s important to clean up our community and to show respect for the country that we live in. We’re blessed to live in such a beautiful place,” said Windhorst on the importance of these cleanups. “There’s nothing better than to drive down a street and see no trash.” Windhorst also talked about some of the other benefits of cleaning up the area, such as making the neighborhoods safer, making the area more appealing to visitors, developing a sense of community in which everyone is coming together for a common goal, and simply getting out there to do something positive and proactive to help the community.
Community members can stay updated and get involved in local cleanups by looking out for announcements in the Cibola Citizen, on social media, and on the radio. Windhorst typically notifies the community of upcoming cleanups in his letters to the editor, on social media posts on his Facebook page, and on local radio stations.
There was a cleanup event on Saturday, June 5 at the end of the pavement going up to Mount Taylor. The event was put together by the Cibola Trail Alliance, working with the U.S. Forest Service.
“I’m seeing a lot of really good things,” said Windhorst of how far Cibola County has come so far and the direction it is heading.