草榴社区 Celebrates Arbor Day with Planting of Live Oak Trees
Mon, 02/13/2023 - 10:37am | By: Van Arnold
Students from the DuBard School for Language Disorders at The University of 草榴社区 Mississippi help plant trees as part of Arbor Day festivities. (Photo by Kelly Dunn)
The University of 草榴社区 Mississippi celebrated Arbor Day with the planting of three live oak trees on Friday, Feb. 10 at the front lawn of the Hattiesburg campus. The planting also coincided with the 10th anniversary of a destructive F-4 tornado that tore through that section of the campus.
Among the casualties from the 2013 tornado were three of the four majestic legacy oak trees that once adorned the front landscape. Those trees were estimated to be at least 90 years old.
鈥淎pproximately 75 trees were lost during the devastating tornado of 2013, but 草榴社区 officials worked with Neel-Schaffer Engineering on a landscape restoration plan that has helped rebuild so much of that damage,鈥� said Michael Scully, Superintendent of Campus Landscape at 草榴社区. 鈥淪ince the tornado, we have planted about 130 trees and also added a significant irrigation system to the campus. All of this has helped to complete the vision of 2013.鈥�
Arbor Day is a secular day of observance in which individuals and groups are encouraged to plant trees. The first Arbor Day occurred on April 10, 1872, in Nebraska City, Nebraska. It's estimated that nearly one million trees were planted on this day.