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Saving the Live Oaks of BSL - The Foir Vard Cleaver
http://w\v '.lfourthward.com/saving-the-live-oaks-of-bsl.html
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Saving the Live Oaks of Bay St. Louis
Attention community members—if you cherish our region’s live oaks and happen to have a live oak on your land that is at least 100 years old- call Shawn Prychitko. a Bay St. Louis resident whose focus on identifying and registering old oak trees benefits not only our Fourth Ward, but the entire community
Over the years both the Bay/Waveland Garden Club and the Hancock County Historical Society have alternately and collectively pursued a way to document those aged oak trees Shawn describes as “living landmarks"
For nearly a year now, Shawn has volunteered for both organizations, taking on the job of finding old oaks in our area and, if size and age requirements are met. registtring them. All trees registered must measure nine and a half feet in circumference, which is representative of 100 years of age. The oak then may be named and may take its place among the state registry of historic grand live oaks maintained by the Sodete Des Arbres. The Sodety of Trees, founded in 1971 by Ocean Springs resident, Mrs. D.L. “Pat” Connor has as one of its purposes to preserve all spedes of trees which possess a living assodation with historical events of the area.
All trees property registered with the Sodety are dedared “indigenous natural assets possessing intrinsic value worthy of area protection."
Most coastal residents know the gradous 500-year old “Friendship Oak." Located on the grounds of the Gulf Park campus of the University of Southern Mississippi, the oak played a role in education, serving as a place where faculty held dasses. Surely it earned its name by serving as a place where generations of students have met to socialize under its cool shade.
But Shawn gently reminds the listener that “every tree has a story" And indeed, surely those of us who grew up in a landscape studded with live oaks remember our own speaal trees—the one dimbed as children or the one where your family picnicked or the old gnarled tree at the end of
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3/5/12 12:48 PM