Schools Celebrate Earth Day with Blue Ridge Electric
For Immediate Release
Contact: Renee Whitener, Director of Corporate Communications, Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation, (828) 758-2383 ext. 3213; Pager:1-800-471-1323;
or E-mail: Renee Whitener
Lenoir, North Carolina (April 22, 2004) – What better way to celebrate Earth Day than by planting a tree? This year, Blue Ridge Electric Membership provided that opportunity to local elementary schools. As part of the cooperative’s commitment to education, they teamed up with elementary schools to help celebrate Earth Day on April 22 by sponsoring an environmentally themed art contest. The winner, Melanie Hart, a sixth-grader at Hudson Elementary, received a Weeping Cherry tree to plant at her school.
Melanie’s winning project was a crafted clay figurine of a sad female holding a replica of the globe and looking in a mirror with the following caption: “Our world is a reflection of ourselves. Do you like what you see?”
Blue Ridge Electric has helped schools in the local community celebrate Earth Day over the past several years by donating environmentally themed books for elementary schools in the cooperative’s service area. Each year, Blue Ridge Electric works with local media coordinators to select books that will capture their students’ attention. Blue Ridge employees then personally deliver the books to all the elementary school principals.
This year, Grey Scheer, director of community relations, began a new initiative – providing an Earth Day art contest for elementary schools. Three winners were chosen for each grade level and winning students received a personal certificate of accomplishment along with an Earth Day tee shirt. The grand prize winner received a tree to be planted at their school by Blue Ridge Electric on Earth Day, April 22.
The art contest winners will be posted on the Blue Ridge Electric Web site, www.BlueRidgeEMC.com.
Blue Ridge Electric is a not-for-profit, member-owned cooperative utility serving some 67,000 consumers in Caldwell, Watauga, Ashe, Alleghany and Wilkes counties. Its subsidiary, Blue Ridge Energies, provides propane and heating fuels as well as gas fireplaces, logs, heaters, and stoves from offices in Lenoir, Boone, West Jefferson and Hickory.
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