OXFORD – The Oxford Village Tree Board held its thirty-second annual “Tree City USA” Arbor Day Celebration on Saturday, April 28, at the LaFayette Park bandstand.

The event included an award ceremony beginning with a proclamation, prize presentations to three Oxford Academy fifth grade Arbor Day poster contest winners, and a give away of 50 seedling evergreen trees and a variety of 150 seedling shrubs. The Oxford Village Tree Board encouraged families and individuals to have a planting celebration of their own on Arbor Day.

Oxford was recently named a "Tree City USA", for its twenty-fifth year in a row, by the National Arbor Day Foundation. One of the standards for that designation is that the community must have a tree board, which the village has. The Oxford Village Tree Board members are John Godfrey, Jeanie Petersen, Gray Stevens, Sandy Dain, and Jean Curtis. Accepting the Tree City USA flag and award from the DEC Forester was the honorable Village of Oxford Mayor Terry M. Stark.

Having an Arbor Day observance is another standard, and the Tree Board enjoys coordinating this ceremony with a tree give away. The seedlings that were chosen for this year are the Norway Spruce, Picea Abies, and Frasier Fir, Abies fraseri. Both are hardy evergreen “Christmas” trees which have been purchased from the Meadowview Tree Farm LLC, a small nursery in Western NY. Both conifers have great features making the planting decision a difficult one.