Milbank Middle School sixth grade student, Avery Whitesitt, was the local winner of the Grant County Conservation District’s Arbor Day essay contest. She is the daughter of Travis and Kelly Whitesitt. All sixth grade Middle School students wrote an essay. Her essay advances to the state competition.
Avery’s winning essay:
Arbor Day
The very first Arbor Day took place on April 10, 1872. This holiday celebrated our plants and trees. Arbor Day was Julius Sterling Morton’s idea. Morton was a Nebraska journalist and politician, originally from Michigan. Morton felt that Nebraska’s landscape and economy would benefit from planting trees and plants over a long stretch of land.
Morton started to plant trees everywhere and urged his neighbors and whole community to join him. They all together planted about one million trees. Ever since then, people have been celebrating Arbor Day by planting trees and other plants towards the end of April or beginning of May.
On Arbor Day, most people usually just plant many kinds of plants, but that’s not all you can do. You can check your plant’s health, water and care for your plants or the community’s plants, or you could give a plant to someone who would enjoy one.
We celebrate Arbor Day in South Dakota because we care about the plants and trees that we see on an everyday basis, and Arbor Day gets the public up and out doing things in their community.
Arbor Day is mostly about planting trees and caring for our environment. It is very important for us and our trees and plants, and without it our environment wouldn’t be as nice as it is today.
– Avery Whitesitt
Staff Writer
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