BERKELEY – There are trees surrounding the football field at Central Regional High School that, for most students and staff, have always been there.
The district, founded in 1954, has a long history. And what better way to learn about it than to talk to past graduates?
Kathy Moss was a senior in 1970, the first year that there was an Earth Day. It wasn’t quite as well known then as it is now.
Her Biology II teacher, Herman J. Cooper, took a group of students out to plant baby trees along the football field. There were about two dozen students who partook in this project.
“It wasn’t a big deal” at the time, she recalled. It was just another lesson. Flash forward to present day, and she sees pictures of those trees, and sees how tall and full they have become. “I’m proud of it.”
Now, she lives in Texas, having been a middle school physical education teacher. At the time, she lived on the base at what is now Joint Base-McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. She recalls that she was one of 13 students who were bussed down to Central.
The environmental movement was just in its infancy at the time. According to EarthDay.org, Earth Day got its origin from applying the style of grass roots anti-war protests with environmental education.
Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson had been concerned with the problems of pollution, punctuated by a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, CA in 1969. Senator Nelson announced the idea for a teach-in on college campuses. He soon recruited Congressman Pete McCloskey as his co-chair and activist Denis Hayes to organize the campus teach-ins. They choose April 22 because it was a weekday falling between spring break and final exams to maximize the greatest student participation.
An estimated 20 million Americans – at that time 10 percent of the population – took part in that first day.
Two dozen of them were planting trees in Bayville.
