CASEY: They fought against City Hall – and a tree in Highland Park won | Government and Politics
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Thanksgiving is just nine days away, and Christmas this year falls exactly 30 days later. Despite the looming holiday, Monday morning, the city of Roanoke had yet to find a suitable tree for its large annual tree-lighting ceremony at Wells Fargo Plaza.
Usually, the downtown vacation icon is donated by a generous citizen, and the switch for its decorations is flipped as part of Dickens’ celebration of a Christmas. But so far this year, no one has donated a suitable Christmas tree, said Michael Clark, the city’s director of parks and recreation.
That’s good too, because a far-sighted former city forester prepared for exactly such an eventuality about 20 years ago. Dan Henry, who is now retired, artfully planted some young Norway spruce trees in Highland Park just in case Town Hall got in a sprinkle of Christmas trees.
Apparently, however, Henry hadn’t anticipated that as the planted spruce rose to the sky over two decades, affection for it would grow among the tree-dwellers of Roanoke’s Old Southwest neighborhood. That’s what happened.
And then, one day last week, a team of city employees showed up to examine the spruce in question, which is on the Walnut Avenue side of the park. Alerted neighbors quickly learned that the tree would be sacrificed for the holiday season.
From there the news spread like pine needles in a strong wind.
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