Kids plant trees for Arbor Day

Winter has been reluctant to depart the Sisters Country, but last Thursday Mr. Hewett's fourth-grade class defied the old man to undertake an annual ritual: they planted trees in honor of Arbor Day.

The trees are part of the landscaping for a big berm pushed up in the Sisters Overnight Park, right along Locust Street, where the plantings will screen the view of campers and cut down on road noise.

The City of Sisters Public Works Department moved 350 cubic yards of soil, salvaged over the years from local piping projects, to build the berm, which acting public works director Paul Bertagna dubbed "the fourth Sister."

"We named her 'Joy,'" he said.

McPheeter's Turf provided five spruce and five aspens for the planting.

Katie Lompa of the Oregon Department of Forestry talked about the importance of trees with the students, who also read haiku poetry they had composed for the event.

Lompa noted that the City of Sisters has earned Tree City USA status for the fifth straight year. Sisters is one of 55 Tree City USA designees across the nation.

"You should be really proud to be living in a city that has Tree City USA status," Lompa said.

And by all appearances, the students were proud. They dug in enthusiastically, with help from public works personnel and parents, taking the trees out of their containers and carefully setting them in prepared holes, then filling them with mulch. The kids named their trees with monickers like "Barky" and "Rootsy."

Lompa presented the city with a Tree City USA flag, which will fly on the flagpole in the Papandrea's Pizzeria parking lot.

Arbor Day started in Nebraska in 1872, when J. Sterling Morton, a member of the Nebraska State Board of Agriculture, proposed that a day be set aside annually for tree planting. More than one million trees were planted statewide on that first day.

Arbor Day spread quickly and is now celebrated across the country, with varying dates set state-by-state to accommodate differing climates and planting seasons.

Author Bio

Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief

Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.

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