Wayland students help clean up Matador tornado debris

PLAINVIEW – Several Wayland Baptist University students traveled on Saturday with College Heights Baptist Church’s youth group to Matador, where they cleared debris strewn along US 70 by a tornado that ripped through the city June 21.

Students in Wayland’s Welch Summer Research Program worked to clear the highway right-of-way as well as an adjacent debris field.

“There were 18 of us in total,” said Dr. Robert Moore, Professor of Chemistry, and coordinator for the Welch Summer Research Program. Upon learning the church youth group would be working in Matador, Moore invited the Wayland students to make the trip. The students immediately volunteered to go to Matador, which is 53 miles east of Plainview.

“We worked cleaning up the highway and adjacent field for about three hours,” Moore said.

Brun Moureira, Elizabeth Wirth, Luke Brockway, and Chelsea Kelley are Summer Research Program students who volunteered to help. They were joined by Moore and Alec Buitron, an enrollment coach with Wayland’s Admission Office.