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Insights > Entergy Arkansas celebrates Arbor Day with Batesville Elementary School students
Entergy Arkansas celebrates Arbor Day with Batesville Elementary School students
04/25/2025
Elementary students in Batesville learned about Arbor Day and the impact of trees in our communities with hands-on activities and some special guests.
Batesville-area employees from Entergy Arkansas visited West Elementary School this week, where they spent the morning with around 100 second grade students.
The goal for the visit is to help educate the next generation about the importance of trees and the important role they play for the environment, animals and humans.
“We teach them about tree biology, photosynthesis and the different types of trees, but that is just the beginning,” said Chris Millay, vegetation operations coordinator for Entergy Arkansas. “Members of our team also provide demonstrations and hands-on learning experiences for the students throughout the morning.”
Activities included watching tree contractors climb a tree and work with a bucket truck alongside a discussion about tree trimming. Local line workers talked to the students about powerline safety. The Batesville-area supervisor, who is also a local beekeeper, showed the kids the relationship between bees and trees. Volunteers from the engineering and customer service groups also helped with the event.
The final activity of the morning was a tree planting on the West Elementary School campus. The students chose to plant three ornamental trees that will bloom in the spring for all to enjoy: a dogwood, forest pansy redbud and a Yoshino cherry tree.
“The tree planting exercise gives us the opportunity to teach and show them the correct way to plant a tree,” says Millay. “We also tell them where trees should and shouldn’t be planted. Hopefully this helps prevent future trees being planted near the Right of Ways.”
The Batesville crew also provided coloring activities for the students to take home from school.
Teachers say the students will remember the fun morning for a long time.
“They love seeing all the equipment and learning about the big trucks and power lines they see around town,” said Kay Treadway, second grade teacher at West Elementary School. “We hope this will be a catalyst that motivates them to do other things to take good care of the earth.”
The Arbor Day event is part of Entergy’s commitment to maintaining Tree Line USA certification, which holds the company to high standards of best practices for public and private utility arboriculture. The company has been recognized with this certification for the last 19 straight years.
