Tonganoxie — Giant oaks that for decades shaded yards and full elms that loomed outside home windows were suddenly split, ripped and destroyed by a May 2000 tornado that tore through Tonganoxie.
This spring, however, Tonganoxie residents are rooting for new tree life in the city by undertaking a massive tree-planting project to replace dead and dying trees with young and healthy ones.
Dan Charles of Thorne's Tree Service in Tonganoxie rakes up debris Saturday after sawing limbs from trees that were damaged by last year's tornado. It's part of a project in Tonganoxie to replace damaged trees with new ones.
Elspeth Pevear, district forester with the Kansas Forest Service, has aided the Tonganoxie Tree Board in efforts to plant new trees in areas hit hard by the tornado.
"They've got a tree board that has decided that trees are really important to them and to the community," Pevear said. "The tree board and now the community is really starting to get fired up about this thing."
The initiative began with a fund-raising effort that resulted in more than $14,000 in donated funds for trees. The Tonganoxie tree board, chaired by Velda Roberts, solicited a $2,500 grant from the Kansas Forest Service and a $2,000 donation from a Kansas City, Mo., radio station.
Peruvian Connection, a Tonganoxie mail-order company, is donating approximately $10,000 for the remainder of the cost of tree removal and planting.
Amy Sudlow, manager of Peruvian Connection's Web site and public relations, said the company saw the donation for trees as a way of giving back to a community devastated by losses from the tornado.
The entire project, Roberts said, has been a joint community effort, from raising money to clearing away dead and dying trees. Volunteers will gather again Saturday to plant 80 new trees.
"It is very much a volunteer effort," Roberts said.
Volunteers spent last week clearing away 34 huge and badly beaten trees, some as tall as 60 feet. Since the tornado, board members, residents, the Western Resources Green Team and even Lansing State Prison inmates have aided in hauling away the giant trees.
"If it hadn't been for all those people, we'd still be trying to finish the massive cleanup and wouldn't be able to go forward with recreating the beauty we had," Roberts said. "There's not a day goes by we don't appreciate that help."
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