Fourth grade students receive trees to plant in honor of Arbor Day

With a generous donation made by Sterling Bank, all fourth grade students within the Lind and Ritzville school districts received a Ponderosa pine tree to plant in honor of Arbor Day.

Tree Board member Mike Schrag and Sterling Bank manager Chad Hoeft visited the local schools to distribute the trees and speak to the students briefly about Arbor Day on April 18.

While Arbor Day is celebrated on the fourth Friday of April, the trees arrived early and were distributed to the children in the hopes of having all of the trees planted prior to Arbor Day.

The donation allowed the students to have a discussion with their teachers, Janis Behrens in Lind and Martha Heidenreich in Ritzville, regarding the importance of planting trees and the meaning of Arbor Day.

The students received forester awards in recognition of planting a tree for the annual holiday.

The first Arbor Day took place on April 10, 1872, and began with a man named Sterling Morton who first proposed the idea of a tree-planting holiday to be called Arbor Day. Morton, a resident of Nebraska, received approval from the State Board of Agriculture and it is estimated that more than one million trees were planted at the first Arbor Day.

The lesson plans to teach the fourth grade class about Arbor Day included a history of the day, a word search game with words about trees, and a statement signed by Hoeft about the importance of Arbor Day.

Students learned the most important part about planting trees is to help keep the air, rivers and lakes clean, as well as provide oxygen necessary for daily life.

After planting the trees at their homes, students were officially designated as a Fourth Grade Forester of Washington.