WEEK OF MAY 18, 2023
VOLUME 18 | ISSUE 48
FREE
Second Saturdays kick off in Arvada A bittersweet Arbor Day at Peck Elementary
Peck celebrated its 37th — and final — Arbor Day BY RYLEE DUNN RDUNN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Night Routine capped off the night on the Grandview stage. BY RYLEE DUNN RDUNN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Olde Town Arvada’s Second Saturdays Concert Series and Street Fair kicked off in Arvada on May 13, with vendors filling the streets and musical performances from Night Routine on the Grandview Stage and Boot Gun in the Square. The first of four events this year, Second Saturday was threatened by looming clouds throughout the evening, which luckily didn’t materialize into major rainfall. “We are excited to have kicked off our 11th Annual Second Saturday Summer SEE SATURDAYS, P5
Shoppers browse the vendor booths.
VOICES: 14 | LIFE: 16 | CALENDAR: 17 | SPORTS: 24
PHOTOS COURTESY OF STEPHANIE PAUL
In the last 37 years, over 1,800 Peck Elementary School students have planted nearly 500 trees at parks across the city in recognition of Arbor Day — an annual occasion that celebrates the value of trees within the community, which was first observed in Arvada in 1987 thanks to former Peck teacher Dudley Weiland. On May 11, Peck students celebrated the final Arbor Day before the elementary school closes at the end of the school year. To commemorate the bittersweet occasion, Peck fifth graders teamed up with Arvada’s Forestry Team to plant 37 trees at Sunset Ridge Park — one for each year Peck observed Arbor Day. For the first Arrvada Arbor Day, Weiland teamed up with former City Forester Craig Hillegass to plan the event, which seeks to promote education about the benefits of tree preservation and planting of trees themselves. “I remember going up to Peck Elementary School and sitting down in one of (Weiland’s) classrooms in the little chairs for the fifth and sixth graders, and we planned this thing out and how we were going to do it,” Hillegass said. “The first year was at Lady Bug Park. “I still go by there. The trees we planted way back then are still there. We planted a Green Ash that’s probably 40 feet tall now. We could drive around Arvada now and remember all the Arbor Days and all the trees we planted.” For some former Peck students, like Maureen Worley, Arbor Day SEE ARBOR DAY, P2
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