Times Observer photo by Josh Cotton Rebecca Ryan, co-president of the Warren Garden Club, shares the history of Arbor Day during a celebration held Friday at DeFrees Park in Warren.

We stand under them for shade.

We rely on them to produce oxygen.

Yet trees can often go unnoticed.

Less so on Friday as a gathering was held at DeFrees Park in Warren to commemorate Arbor Day.

According to the Arbor Day Foundation, a Nebraska editor and secretary of the Nebraska Territory J. Sterling Morton, who was passionate about planting trees, proposed a tree planting holiday to the State Board of Agriculture in 1872.

“The celebration date was set for April 10, 1872,” according to the Foundation. “Prizes were offered to counties and individuals for the largest number of properly planted trees on that day. It was estimated that more than 1 million trees were planted in Nebraska on the first Arbor Day.”

Rebecca Ryan, co-president of the Warren Garden Club, shared that history of Arbor Day on Friday and pointed out how the Warren Garden Club started the Arbor Day celebration here many years ago.

She also stressed the “long-range benefits” trees provide for us as well as future generations.

2024 marks the City of Warren’s 36th consecutive designation as a Tree City USA.

DCNR District Forester Cecile Stelter said the program recognizes communities that “wisely manage public tree resources.”

She highlighted the City of Warren’s “committed work and funding throughout the year,” to maintain the designation, adding that some communities don’t qualify while others don’t stick with it.

This year’s Arbor Day tree is a Green Mountain Sugar Maple and it’s placed near the playground on the edge of the park.

According to City Arborist Joe Reinke, the tree will grow to a maximum height of 60 feet with a bright red to orange fall foliage.

Kris Whittaker, both a member of the Garden Club and the city’s Parks, Recreation and Landscape Commission, explained that the sugar maple is native to eastern North America, the bark used by Native Americans for a cough medicine and a tonic developed from the syrup.

A group of preschoolers from the Jefferson DeFrees Family Center helped Reinke plant the tree a couple weeks ago.

Reinke said he once helped plant Warren’s Arbor Day tree when he was five.

That tree is now 80 feet high.

One of the pre-schoolers that helped him plant this year’s tree? His son, Sawyer.