By Shannon Lukens. (This is a picture of the sidewalk along Maple Street, where the trees were removed last year.)

 

Those big cottonwood trees that were removed at Steamboat Springs High School last year, because of the reconfiguring of the parking lot, are being replaced. It’s happening next Tuesday. Matt Tredway had planted the original cottonwoods that were there in the early 2000s, with students from a science class at the middle school when he was a teacher there. He says he and some of the students will be back there to replant new trees. They will also get help from staff and community volunteers.

“Oh man, it feels great and it feels full circle and when we planted those little things they were just little sticks and it’s so gratifying to see them grow up and be so prominent in front of the school and we’re looking forward to a new group of those trees in front of the school as well.”

 

Tredway used to run Everything Outdoor Steamboat when he was a teacher at the middle school. The students would sell trees as a fundraiser each year. Tredway thinks they sold about 20,000 trees over 17 years. Those cottonwoods that were torn out at the high school were part of a grant to the district.