First Lady Sally Ganem, ReTree Nebraska Honorary Chair, was the featured speaker and official tree planter at the 2013 Capitol Arbor Day tree planting ceremony on the west lawn of the Capitol. Students from St. Mary’s School in Lincoln participated in the morning’s event, along with representatives from Nebraska’s tree community, including Arbor Day Foundation Vice President for Programs Dan Lambe, Nebraska Forest Service State Forester Dr. Scott Josiah, Eric Berg, Forest Service Community Forestry Program Director, President-Elect Ken Rittgarn with the Nebraska Arborist Association, Nebraska Nursery and Landscape Association President Kim Davidson, Nebraska Association of Resource Districts Public Relations and Communications Director Alyssa Smola and Dr. Constance Miller, Forester with the Nebraska Natural Resources Conservation Service. The speakers at the program commended J. Sterling Morton for beginning a holiday in Nebraska which has spread around the world. Mrs. Ganem stated planting trees today is as important as it was when the pioneers arrived on the vast treeless prairie. Everyone agreed Nebraska communities are better for the tree planting efforts of our founders, and we need to carry on the tree planting holiday tradition started in 1872, not only on Arbor Day but whenever a tree can be successfully planted. The program concluded with Mrs. Ganem and the students ceremonially shoveling soil onto the roots of the Green Mountain Sugar Maple planted according to the original Capitol landscape plan of Ernst Herminghaus.
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