On Saturday morning, April 27, Board members of the Charles H. Bassett Youth Foundation met at its Ah-Wa-Ga center on Lake street to authorize 2024 student scholarships for the Class of 2024.
Eudora and Bill Shuler dropped in and Eudora inspired those gathered with stories of her yearly Arbor Day activity in elementary school, when in grades 1-6 she and her classmates planted trees and sang a “tree” song. What fun they had listening to this childhood story from a now 101-year old.
Arbor Day began in 1872 in Nebraska with all the elementary schools planting trees because J. Sterling Morton (born in Adams, N.Y.) promoted it as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.
Tioga County native Ferdinand Cross, from Flemingville, became a well-known stone carver in Indiana and carved the stone memorial to Sterling Morton and his family in the shape of a tree. This stonework and piece of art now honor the “Father of Arbor Day”.
Robert Bassett, of the Charles H. Bassett Youth Foundation, is pictured by a newly planted tree on Arbor Day. Provided photo.
From Nebraska, Arbor Day community tree plantings spread across the Nation to the Arbor Day it is today.
The CHBYF Board members, along with Eudora and Bill, took up the shovel and began planting a new Adirondack Crabapple Tree on Lake Street, right outside of Andy’s Barber Shop.
The tree is now firmly planted, and special thanks are extended to Kenny at W&W Nursery for offering a discount on the tree. This is the second tree the CHBYF has planted on Lake Street, and more will be needed as four larger trees were cut down and removed to make way for building scaffolding on the corner of Lake and Main Streets.
So sad to lose trees, and so happy to add them. The Bassett Foundation has decided to plant at least one tree every year on Spring Arbor Day Owego.
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