THE FIRST TEN YEARS: 1998-2008

At the urging of Kirkwood Mayor Marge Schramm, the community completed its first ever inventory of public street trees in 1997 utilizing community citizen volunteers to observe and register tree data.  Skip Kincaid, Kirkwood resident and professional consulting arborist with Skip Kincaid & Associates, assisted the City to successfully obtain a grant to fund the inventory, trained the volunteers and assisted with overseeing data collection, data analysis and report creation. For a community without a professional urban forester on city staff, a logical next step to annually maintain a public street tree inventory would be to establish a tree board for the community.

The Kirkwood Urban Forestry Commission was established by Kirkwood city Ordinance 8689 on February 19, 1998, significantly supported by the leadership efforts of Kirkwood Mayor Marge Schramm. The KUFC was organized using the guidelines provided by the National Arbor Day Foundation.  

The first meeting of the Commission was held in February 1998. Linda Holekamp served as the first Chair. Membership of the first Commission included John Banjak, Sue Dellbringge, Lowell Hayman, Julie Holley, Joan Murphy, and Phyllis Weidman. Also participating were Mayor Marge Schramm and Curtis Carron, City of Kirkwood Staff Liaison.

By June, 1998, the Kirkwood Urban Forestry Commission established a Strategic Plan and Action Timeline. Dave White, Director of Kirkwood Parks and Recreation, served as facilitator of the strategic planning sessions.  In addition to conducting the annual public street tree inventory updates and applying for Kirkwood’s Tree City USA designation, the Commission established community education as a top priority. As a result, the Kirkwood Junior Treekeepers program was created in 2000 under the leadership of Commission member Bob McCoy.

In addition to establishing the Junior Treekeepers program, other notable accomplishments of the KUFC during its first decade included preparing a highly researched booklet of “Recommended Street Tree Selections for Kirkwood” and conducting a survey of “Pioneer Trees” in Kirkwood, trees that were certified to be at least 150 years old in recognition of Kirkwood’s 2003 Sesquicentennial celebration. To further celebrate the sesquicentennial milestone year the Commission hosted a well-attended lecture series and launched a year-long tree planting initiative using the slogan “Take Root in Your City: Plant a Tree.”

Thanks largely to the efforts of the Kirkwood Urban Forestry Commission, Kirkwood is the recipient of a variety of awards including “Tree City USA” for 18 consecutive years as of 2008, “Arbor Day Growth Award”, “Missouri Arbor Award of Excellence” and “National Arbor Day Foundation Celebration Award”. In 2007, KUFC assisted with Kirkwood’s entry in the “America in Bloom” national community enhancement competition with Kirkwood ultimately winning the “Community Involvement” criteria award by placing first among 30 communities nationwide.

Since its inception, the Kirkwood Urban Forestry Commission has been committed to pursuing enhancements to Kirkwood’s ordinances relative to the proper selection, establishment, care and preservation of Kirkwood’s trees.  The Commission has maintained an ongoing dialog with Kirkwood’s elected leadership, public officials and citizens to improve and update the language of the city’s ordinances, codes and minimum standards of practice relative to preserving and enhancing Kirkwood’s public trees. A second important goal still in progress is to establish a city staff management level position for an urban forester to professionally manage and promote such codes and practices and to develop a tree fund to ensure sustainability of Kirkwood's public urban forest.