Our big to-do holidays are behind us now until Memorial Day but a couple of laid-back, nature-friendly observances are this week. In Kansas, Arbor Day is Friday, April 25, and Saturday, April 26 is Great Bend’s Earth Day Celebration. Officially, the global Earth Day observance is Tuesday, April 22.
You can celebrate two holidays at once on April 22, because it is also Keep America Beautiful Day.
Unlike other holidays, Arbor Day and Earth Day are planet-centered. Earth Day began in 1970 to promote environmental protection and awareness. Arbor Day is nearly a century older, dating back to 1872 when J. Sterling Morton proposed to the Nebraska Board of Agriculture that a special day be set aside for planting trees. More than 1 million trees were planted in Nebraska that first year.
We like these holidays because there’s no pressure to buy gifts or prepare meals or coordinate family schedules. Similar holidays are World Nature Conservation Day on July 28, World Energy Conservation Day on Dec. 14 and World Wildlife Conservation Day on Dec. 4. Imagine if we had a celebration to focus on Mother Earth every day of the year, and all we did was plant trees and recycle and ride bikes.
That’s not likely to happen. Even our Earth Day Celebration will be something of a big to-do after all. Pack up the family this Saturday and head to the Great Bend Brit Spaugh Zoo for activities from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Great Bend Zoological Society will provide popcorn and face painting. Sponsor Rosewood Services E-cycle will have demonstrations and tomato plants to take home, while sponsor Dairy Queen will give the first 500 children a free ice cream coupon. There will be keeper chats with featured animals. Admission to the zoo is always free, and those who do pay to become members of the Zoo Society can enjoy extra keeper chats and other special events.
As for Arbor Day, Great Bend held a Tree City USA designation for decades, but we have not qualified for several years, according to Public Lands Director Scott Keeler.
In 2020, when Great Bend received the designation for the 37th consecutive year, we had an active Tree Board that went above and beyond the regular requirements to increase the community’s awareness of and appreciation for trees. The Tree Board was zeroing in on helping Great Bend earn the Tree City Growth Award for the sixth time.
That year, the Covid-19 pandemic prompted the closure of city parks, playgrounds and sporting events, and the annual celebration of Arbor Day at the Argonne Forest in Veterans Memorial Park was canceled. We’re not sure what came next, but at this time Great Bend does not have an active Tree Board. However, city arborist Doug Bert remains on the job and trees continue to be planted.
To sum up, it’s Spring and people are ready to get back to nature. It’s Earth Day, which means it’s OK to hug a tree. We’ll get back to fun people-centric celebrations soon enough. (Don’t forget to come to Final Friday on Forest this week.) But we should always we aware of the planet. There is no Planet B.
