Cooperstown Mayor Jeff Katz reads the village’s Arbor Day proclamation at this hour at the site of a tree being planted in honor of Father John Roos, who died Jan. 3. The red oak is across Elm Street from St. Mary’s “Our Lady of the Lake” Catholic Church, where Roos was pastor in the 1990s. Attending the annual Arbor Day commemoration were teacher Dave Bertram’s fifth-grade CCS class. At right is the DEC forester Scott Moxham, who answered the pupils’ questions prior to the planting’s completion. Arbor Day was founded in 1872 by Sterling Morton, a native of Adams, Jefferson County, who was a newspaper editor in Nebraska, and served as that state’s acting governor for a while. (Jim Kevlin/AllOTSEGO.com)
