Conway celebrates Arbor Day

Laurel Park's trees provided a scenic backdrop for Conway's Arbor Day celebration on Saturday.

The program included music by the Ida Burns Elementary School Scat Cats and drama by the Bob Courtway Middle School drama club. Arbor Day Young Artist Awards were also presented.

Mayor Tab Townsell said Saturday, "Conway is a smart city, but we could not be a smart city if we were not a Tree City USA."

Becoming a Tree City USA involves forming a tree board, a tree care ordinance, a community forestry program and an Arbor Day celebration. According to the city's tree board's bylaws, the board is dedicated to increasing public awareness and providing education about trees, and increasing the tree canopy within the city.

Townsell said while everyone can appreciate that trees clean the air, what do trees do for the average citizen's bottom line?

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"A lot of people want hard numbers," he said. "How about 1,200 new jobs, $40,000 starting salary and a $60 million payroll."

Townsell said when Hewlett-Packard executives first visited Conway, they were in town 45 minutes.

"What did they see? A beautiful, tree-covered UCA campus and a beautiful, tree-covered residential area. They were blown away," he said.

Townsell said Conway could not have landed the HP deal without the tree board.

Ouida Wright of the Conway Tree Board gave a presentation on the Ben Franklin Tree. During the colonial period, she said, two explorers discovered a species of tree in Georgia they considered especially beautiful. On their four-year journey, they never found more trees like the few special ones in Georgia. They returned to Georgia and brought five of the trees to their lab in Philadelphia. They sent two trees to Europe, kept two, and one died, Wright said. They named the species after their friend, Ben Franklin. Later the species became extinct. All the trees in existence today are from those propagated in the lab, she said. They grow to be 20 or 30 feet tall and turn brilliant colors in the fall, she said. The tree board has one and will plant it in the Faulkner County Library garden. Perhaps the tree board will propagate more such trees in the future, she said.

Also at Saturday's Arbor Day celebration, trees were given away, and mini-seminars on tree planting and selection and tree pruning were held by Forester Steve Burgess and Assistant State Forester Doug Akin.

(Staff writer Rachel Parker Dickerson can be reached by e-mail at rachel.dickerson@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1277. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)