Trees will honor 3 residents

Columbia County Clean and Beautiful and the Martinez-Evans Rotary Club will plant four trees in honor of three significant people at this year's Arbor Day celebration.

The annual event will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday at Savannah Rapids Pavilion, located at 3300 Evans to Locks Road in Martinez. Admission is free.

"Arbor Day started over 100 years ago to promote a special day to set aside a day of planting trees," said Stephanie Thomas-Rees, Columbia County's green space coordinator.

This year, Thomas-Rees said the group will memorialize the late Cpl. Wesley Mack, a Columbia County sheriff's deputy who died from injuries suffered in an accident while working on Interstate 20 in July, and the late Stephanie Hackett, a former office manager for the Columbia County Chamber of Commerce who died in January after a long battle with colon cancer. Another tree will honor David Roper, a Rotary International member.

Thomas-Rees said festivities will include a giveaway of tree seedlings and a reading of an Arbor Day proclamation. Steve Friedman, of the Nature Conservancy in Atlanta, will be the guest speaker.

Thomas-Rees said those who participate will gain a new perspective about green space.

"I think (the public) will come away with the value of tree preservation and conservation in general," she said. "They will learn more about the quality of life rather than the aesthetics."