Students from six Montezuma County elementary schools gathered at Parque de Vida on Thursday to celebrate trees and their importance.
Mesa, Manaugh, Kemper, Lewis-Arriola, Mancos and Kiva Montessori were among the local schools that participated in this year’s Arbor Day poster and poem contest, which was organized by the city parks, recreation and forestry department.
Elementary students had about a month to create a piece of art or literature around the theme “Celebrating Trees in Our Community,” and members of the parks and recreation board chose the winners at their April 21 meeting.
The overall poster contest winner was Savanna Templeton of Mancos Elementary School, and the winning poem was by Aiden Balfour of Kemper Elementary School.
It rained in the Cortez area on Thursday morning, but by the event’s 12:30 p.m. start, the sun was shining.
Colorado State Forest Service member Ryan Cox started things off with some Arbor Day history and how Cortez celebrates it as part of the Arbor Day Foundation’s “Tree City USA.” The program requires that participating cities hold an annual ceremony recognizing the holiday.
Cox gave small prizes, including seeds, to kids who could answer trivia questions such as the name of the longest-living tree (the bristlecone pine) and the Colorado state tree (a blue spruce).
All the students got ice cream and green 2017 Arbor Day T-shirts. They also got white fir seedlings, which local arborist David Temple taught them how to plant. Smokey Bear and representatives from the Montezuma School to Farm Project helped them practice planting skills.
Family members and teachers watched as kids showed their posters and poems and talked about their ideas. Savanna, a fourth-grader who submitted a watercolor painting, said she was inspired by learning how trees help the world.
“Trees help the world the most, because they provide a lot of oxygen,” she said. “And most of the rainforest is full of the most extraordinary creatures.”
She and the other first- and second-place winners chose an Osprey Packs backpack or a cash award from one of the local banks that sponsored the event.
Parks and recreation director Dean Palmquist said they didn’t receive very many poems, so only the top two poetry winners were announced: Aidan, and Natalie Whitmer of Manaugh.
The overall second-place poster winner was Shayla Saunders of Mesa. Gillian Story and Makenna Burton won first and second place out of the Kemper students. Cruz Hernandez and Danika Graf were the winners at Lewis-Arriola. Esperanza Martinez and Bryce Vicenti won first and second place at Manaugh. After Savanna, the second-place winner at Mancos Elementary was Tory McKinley, and the second-place winner at Mesa was Kimberley Ramirez.
Winning posters will be displayed in the rec center through May.
The celebration was held on Thursday to coincide with school schedules; nationally, it was celebrated on Friday.
