Champion chooses another instrumental role
River cleanup co-organizer steps down, will host bluegrass event


By Betsy Reason
Betsy.Reason@indystar.com

NOBLESVILLE -- Rich Hubbard is confident the 13th annual White River cleanup will come together in September, although he won't head the effort.




Noblesville Police sergeant Rich Hubbard, shown here in 2002, is stepping down as co-organizer of the White River cleanup. He will focus on a bluegrass event he's holding in his father's memory. - Steve Sanchez / The Star

Pitch ins

Rich Hubbard's bluegrass festival is 11 a.m. Sept. 22 at Shelter No. 1 at Forest Park, 701 Cicero Road. Donations will be accepted for the ALS Foundation.

The White River cleanup is Sept. 8. For information on how to volunteer, call City Hall, (317) 776-6367.

The Noblesville Police sergeant who's been co- organizing the cleanup with Lance Busby since it started in 1995 is stepping down to take on a project that the 43-year-old said is closer to his heart.
Hubbard is planning a bluegrass festival and pitch-in Sept. 22 in memory of his father, who played guitar and dulcimer and loved old-time music. Gene Hubbard worked 30 years for the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and died in 2005 from Lou Gehrig's disease. Festival proceeds will benefit research for that illness, which affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.
Hubbard, the 2002 Topics Newspapers Citizen of the Year for his work on the river, started playing guitar a year ago and might play at the festival. "I don't say I'm good at all, I just have fun," he said.
Hubbard is asking folks to bring a covered dish, a lawn chair and a bluegrass instrument if they have one, and spend the day enjoying high lonesome bluegrass sounds and a little gospel. "That's just the way that Dad would want it," said Hubbard, who says family is more important than anything.
That's one reason Hubbard relinquished his White River cleanup duties. He said daughter Katie, who will turn 15 on Sept. 3, gets "gypped" on her birthday every year because he's so busy working on the river.
"This was supposed to be the year we could relax and not do anything," said wife LuAnne Hubbard, who found out at lunch Monday that her husband had rented a shelter and was planning a festival, which she expects to end up "a lot bigger" than he started it out to be.
That's what happened with the cleanup, which she said has grown into a Noblesville tradition.
Rich Hubbard credits the community for the accomplishments of the river cleanup committee and is comfortable handing off his duties to Allen Lind of Noblesville, who heads up the new board.
Busby, a 1992 Noblesville High School graduate and a reserve police officer in Arcadia, also resigned as co-organizer to spend more time with his family. "We've always been a team," he said of this partnership with Hubbard.
"I feel extremely accomplished," Hubbard said, remembering the first year, when about 20 guys got together to pick up trash, thinking it would be a one-time event.
In the 12 years since, volunteers have picked up trash along a 12- to 15-mile stretch of the White River. They've pulled about 6,000 tires and 200 tons of trash and debris from the water and banks.
Hubbard still looks forward to putting on his work gloves and getting dirty with the rest of the volunteers. "It's not easy to let go," he said. "But I realize there are other people with other ideas that hopefully can make things grow even more than I did."


Call Star reporter Betsy Reason at (317) 444-5542.
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