BELLE FOURCHE—Imagine having a day just to celebrate trees? Well the last Friday in April is set aside for just that, Arbor Day! For the past 19 years, Ann Anderson, fifth grade science teacher and the fifth grade students at Belle Fourche Middle school have been celebrating trees!
For all of those years Anderson and her fifth grade students have been planting a tree, or sometimes two, at the Middle School. That means they are responsible for well over 20-25 trees beautifying the school grounds. “Arbor Day is important, the whole philosophy of getting out there and doing something for the environment and helping everyone is important,” she explained. “But then in a fifth grade classroom, it’s also important to be artistic with the poster contest and use your writing skills to express yourself and then share and hear their stories too. It’s a chance to get to know students a little bit better.”
The Arbor Day program started with a proclamation from the Mayor of Belle Fourche, Randy Schmidt. “I proclaim April 25, 2025 as the 153rd anniversary of Arbor Day in the city of Belle Fourche,” he said. City Administrator, Jason LaFayette shared that the City of Belle Fourche would be planting 45 trees in the next week or two. “We’re going to be putting those in some of the parks down at the baseball fields and other parks around town, as well as the cemetery,” he said.
Josh Larson, Community Forester with the State of South Dakota, spent time talking to the kids about forestry and Arbor Day. He informed the students that they do in fact eat parts of a tree at various times in their lives. “If you ever had crackers or any shredded cheese, we’ve all eaten the trunk of the tree,” he explained. “Cellulose is the thing that stops cheese from sticking to itself when you put it on shredded cheese and is actually used as a binder to make those little saltine crackers that everybody always gets with their soup. Cellulose is one half of the compounds that make up the wood that forms the trunk of a tree.”
Larson also explained that cinnamon is the inner bark of the cinnamon tree. “If you’ve ever eaten cinnamon on your toast or in a bagel or on anything really, you’ve eaten the bark of a tree!”
Melanie Williamson with the Lawrence County Conservation District announced the winners of the Arbor Day essay contest. First place was Talia Thompson, Second place was Alex Madrid and Third place was Miley Ozuna-Heckenlaible. First place winner, Talia Thompson stood up and shared her essay with both students and parents that were in the audience.
The winner of the Arbor Day poster contest was Aspen McKinney. She also placed ninth in the State competition and will get her picture in the State calendar.
Those four essay and calendar winners were put in charge of leading the class outside and planting two trees with the guidance of Larson.
When outside Larson went step-by-step instructing the fifth graders how to properly plant the trees so they live and thrive for years to come.
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