Recently we were honored with a City of Colville Notable Tree plaque. This tree is due to the efforts of Dennis Roy in his previous planting of the tree in the 70’s.

Dennis writes:

I’m now retired, but in the late 1980’s I was working as a grounds maintenance employee at a dental office on the corner of Wynne and Birch Streets in Colville. At that time, I planted 600 “Christmas” trees on my property in Rice, WA. I had a thought that a Christmas fir tree would look nice at this spot on Wynne, and so planted it...it was about 1-foot tall. It survived major ground construction and was purposefully saved to be part of the property of the office building when it was just 8-feet tall. Just after the construction took place, some kids were jumping off the rock wall and were grabbing onto the tree branches. I found the tree lying on its side and propped it back up and hoped for the best. It survived and continued to grow, and today it is about 30-35 feet tall!

In the fall of 2017, Rob and Amanda Sumner bought the building. Amanda states, “I have been connected to this building since I was a little girl. I went to the dentist here when Jerry McKellar practiced here! That would have been 30 years ago. My husband, Rob, saw the building for sale and wanted to expand his physical therapy practice, so we purchased it last fall and opened in November. I knew the first time I saw the tree it ‘deserved’ to be honored by decorating it for the holidays. It just seemed special.” Jim Lawson from Lawson Trucking decorated the tree using a boom truck.

I had never seen the tree decorated before. While driving down Wynne St. after dark before Christmas of this year, I was delighted to see the tree lit up! It makes me feel satisfied to know that I had a part in planting the tree that so many people in our community enjoy.

Thank you to Dennis Roy and also the City of Colville Tree Board for acknowledging our tree and placing a plaque at our office.