STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

The City of Hailey and the Hailey Tree Committee will be honored with a Tree City USA Growth Award during Hailey’s ArborFest today--Saturday, June 11.

Hailey Mayor Martha Burke and the committee will be honored at 11:30 a.m. at McKercher Park.

The award is given by the Arbor Day Foundation to Tree City USA communities that demonstrate higher levels of tree care and community engagement in such categories as planting and maintaining trees, protecting them and community outreach and education.

There are more than 3,400 Tree City USA communities in the United States.

This year’s ArborFest will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Roberta McKercher Park alongside the initial Farmer’s Market of the season.

There’ll be free seedlings and fun crafts for kids. Homeowners will be invited to ask an arborist a tree question, meet the orange mustachioed Lorax who speaks for the trees and learn about the Truffula trees.

Hint: Dr. Seuss is believed to have modeled these trees after a shaggy Monterey cypress that was thought to be around 100 years before it fell. These tree with their yellow or white-and-black striped bark were found in Dr. Seuss’s imaginary Truffula Valley before being harvested to extinction.