If you walk the halls and visit the classrooms of EHS and notice teachers wearing green and brown you’ll know it’s Wednesday; tree day.
Tree day is a weekly tradition that was started by science teacher Connie Bang which occurs every Wednesday. It involves science teachers and sometimes staff from other departments dressing up as a tree by wearing green and brown. It all started when a student told Bang that she looked like a tree and it so happened to be a Wednesday. The tradition stuck.
“I was teaching in class and a kid said ‘Ms. Bang you look like a tree’,” Bang said. “And it was a Wednesday so it just happened.”
Bang spread the word about tree day to incoming science teachers and from there it was their choice to decide whether or not they would also dress up as a tree on Wednesdays.
“The first year that I started, the first Wednesday it was kind of a commemorative thing that Bang had always had done,” science teacher Staci Stevens said. “And since Bang was the original biology teacher, the year that Kurtt and I came, Kurtt and I just decided that we would join in.”
However, it’s not only the science department that does it. Other teachers are seen throughout the building wearing these stump-like colors.
“I do it once in a while to support Ms. Bang because I love her and it’s her last year here,” English teacher Kayla Anderson said. “She’s always been super helpful to me since I started here and just the positivity they bring to the place.”
With Bang’s last school year coming to an end, there’s the question about whether or not teachers are going to keep doing these traditions, like tree day, Bang has started.
“In honor of Bang, I think we are going to keep trying to do it,” Stevens said.