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Youths enjoy beautiful Arbor Day

by Judd Wilson Staff Writer
| April 27, 2018 1:00 AM

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Herb Heisel gave students information on calling 811 before digging at an Arbor Day celebration in Hayden Thursday. (JUDD WILSON/Press)

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Local students learned to identify varieties of trees and shrubs, among other activities, at Hayden’s annual Arbor Day event Thursday. (JUDD WILSON/Press)

HAYDEN ­— More than 650 local elementary students participated in an Arbor Day celebration at McIntire Family Park Thursday. The annual event featured interactive, hands-on learning for the students, who came from schools across the area.

Grace Tree Service co-owner Shawn Bennett has taught students at the Arbor Day celebration for years, and saw it as a unique opportunity to connect with them. It’s not every day that he can demonstrate for youngsters what arborists do. With the help of his daughter, Cassidy, who is a sixth-grader at Canfield Middle School, he showed students how arborists safely do their jobs, and encouraged them to look into the career field.

Judy Eichelberger serves on the city’s historical preservation commission and volunteered to teach students about tree history in Hayden. Using a large, 185-year-old tree cookie cut down in 2008 at the Hayden Lake Country Club, Eichelberger explained how the environment impacts trees. As kids rotated through her station, she geared her talks to older kids around identifying the different parts of a tree. With younger students, she used the tree cookie and other smaller ones to show them how to count tree rings to determine the age and health of a tree. They get scars just like people do, she said.

Herb Heisel manned a booth informing kids of the importance of dialing 811 before digging. With coloring books supplied by Avista, Heisel showed kids the different color codes used to mark lines for various utilities. All the kids understood the significant impact of digging up a power line, he chuckled, because without power they’d have to go without television. Heisel said he is a regular at the annual event.

Kristine Rose, elementary aide at North Idaho Christian School, said the hands-on experiences such as tree identification with cards, branches, and samples were exciting for the students. “It opens their eyes to a lot,” she added. Atlas Elementary School paraprofessional Jessica Besser said students had been working on growing things in the classroom, and enjoyed the different stations at the event. Behavioral intervention coach Kelli Booterbaugh said the hands-on activities were helpful for students.

Parks, Recreation and Community Forestry Commission Chairman Lisa Troxel called the event “pretty special.”

“It’s a fabulous event for kids, extremely educational.” The event keeps growing in numbers and number of schools involved, she said. Community Services Director Suzanne Cano said more than 650 kids from Hayden Meadows Elementary, Atlas Elementary, NExA, North Idaho Christian, Christian Center School, INCH, and Discovery Christian went through 25 activity centers. She thanked the 50 volunteers and approximately 15 sponsors “who helped make this event a huge success.”

Homeschool third-grade student Chase Gregory won the 2018 Arbor Day Sticker Contest grand prize, with Hayden Meadows Elementary fifth-grade students Ashland Schnell and Aniston Ewing scoring second and third place.

The city was also honored Thursday with the Idaho Community Forestry Program’s Legacy of Leaves award. “It is a significant award because it is only given to one city or county in the state each year,” explained Cano.