Peterson receives Tree City USA Annual Growth Award

  • Published
  • By 2nd Lt. Justin Davidson-Beebe
  • 21st Space Wing Public Affairs
PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. --  Airmen across Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado observed Arbor Day, June 15, 2018.

To celebrate, Col. Todd Moore, 21st Space Wing commander, and Chief Master Sgt. Jacob Simmons, 21 SW command chief received the Tree City USA Annual Growth Award, at the wing headquarters building.

Andy Schlosberg, Colorado State Forest Services forester, presented the award to Moore, Simmons, and Dan Rodriguez, 21st Civil Engineer Squadron deputy base civil engineer and children from the R.P. Lee Youth Center at Peterson AFB.

“Arbor Day reminds people of the importance of the environment they’re living in, and making the community a nicer place to live,” said Schlosberg.

Peterson AFB was awarded the Annual Growth Award under the Tree City USA program by the Colorado State Forest Service, an award it has won every year since 1994.

The Tree City USA program began in 1976, and is a nationwide program that provides guidance for communities to manage and expand its public tree populations.

Arbor Day started in 1872, when J. Sterling Morton worked with the Nebraska Board of Agriculture to plant over a million trees in Nebraska on a single day.

“To preserve beauty on the earth, beauty herself beseeches us to plant trees, and renew dead landscapes with the shadow and light of plant life flitting through the pendant limbs, the willowy boughs and the waving foliage of sturdy, yet graceful woods. Our ancestors planted orchards to fruit for us, and homes to give us shelter,” Morton said in 1885.

The tradition of planting trees on Arbor Day has continued across the United States and the world.

Since the beginning of 2017, 101 new or replaced trees were planted across Peterson AFB.

 

United States Space Force logo

Official United States Space Force Website