Hayden hosts Arbor Day festival
Lucas Staples watches as Micah Day follows the instructions of Shawn Bennett of how to throw a weighted rope up and over a tree branch at the Hayden Arbor Day festival Thursday.
CAROLYN BOSTICK/Press
Isabella Valdez of the Idaho Department of Lands and Hayden Mayor Alan Davis hold up a Tree City, USA flag Thursday at McIntire Family Park.
A boy flies a kite Thursday at McIntire Family Park during the Hayden Arbor Day festival.
Boys play with a parachute during Thursday's Arbor Day festival at McIntire Family Park.
Sticker art contest winners Ian Orbe, Sydney Dunlap and Jack Jarvis pose with Hayden officials and forestry representatives at the Hayden Arbor Day festival. From left to right: Alan Davis, Isabella Valdez, Adam Reed, Sandy White, Helen Paris.
A Mickey Mouse kite is flown by a boy during the Hayden Arbor Day festival Thursday at McIntire Family Park.
The city of Hayden holds its Arbor Day festival a few weeks after the nationally recognized holiday, but after 23 years, the celebration is still growing.
Mayor Alan Davis declared in a proclamation that “May 15 is Arbor Day in the city of Hayden.”
Hundreds of students from Atlas Elementary School, Christian Center School, Northwest Expedition Academy, Hayden Meadows Elementary School, Alpine Village School and North Idaho Christian School visited McIntire Family Park to enjoy the outdoors, take home a tree sapling and learn about forestry.
A themed scavenger hunt asked students to look for leaves, a bird or a bug, take in smells of bark, fresh air and the grass and touch a tree or grass.
Friends Micah Day and Lucas Staples received tree saplings to plant at home and at the Grace Tree Service station, Shawn Bennett taught Micah Day how to throw a weighted rope into the tree to try and catch it on a branch.
“That caught on a dead limb, but that’s OK,” Bennett said.
This year’s Arbor Day sticker art contest winners were Sydney Dunlap (a fourth grader at Hayden Meadows Elementary School), Ian Orbe (a seventh grader at Christian Center School) and Jack Jarvis (a third grader at Christian Center School).
The winners received gift cards and prizes.
Isabella Valdez of the Idaho Department of Lands and Hayden Mayor Alan Davis hold up a Tree City, USA flag Thursday at McIntire Family Park.
A boy flies a kite Thursday at McIntire Family Park during the Hayden Arbor Day festival.
Boys play with a parachute during Thursday's Arbor Day festival at McIntire Family Park.
Sticker art contest winners Ian Orbe, Sydney Dunlap and Jack Jarvis pose with Hayden officials and forestry representatives at the Hayden Arbor Day festival. From left to right: Alan Davis, Isabella Valdez, Adam Reed, Sandy White, Helen Paris.
A Mickey Mouse kite is flown by a boy during the Hayden Arbor Day festival Thursday at McIntire Family Park.