STORY BY ELIZABETH ANDERSON
PHOTOS BY ALEX JUAREZ
VIDEO BY CLARK CHEN
On September 12th from 2pm-4pm, FHSU faculty and staff gathered in the Quad to learn more about the trees on campus. Fort Hays State University is a three year USA Tree Campus award winner and provides the campus with a reservation of several types of trees to bask under their shade. Part of the gathering was a Tree Climbing Demonstration put on by the FHSU Tree Campus Committee that aimed to show students how to climb their special campus trees safely.
There were several students that showed up who looked forward to climbing trees with the machinery that the Skyview Tree Specialists provided. Both the workers and students had a blast, one of the Skyview workers, Jorge Nunez, mentioned that understanding sharing his knowledge on how to stay safe around trees is very important to him.
“Knowledge is a big part of it. Informing people on how these machines work, even how to make man-made designs, makes me feel better,” said Nunez. “Keeping them safe. Seeing them all come in, rope in hand, and eager to learn the safe way to do it makes me happy”.
One of the climbers, Victor Vazquez, said learning about the safety of climbing was helpful and fun.
“It was super exciting climbing a tree using more safety equipment,” Vazquez said.
As seen, both sides of this event had a thrilling experience and both sides learned from each other. None of this could have been possible without the Tree Campus Committee here at FHSU.