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NORTH MANCHESTER - "Chlorophyll, more like borophyll," said Jabin Burnworth, overdubbing Adam Sandler's voice from a "Billy Madison" video.
Burnworth's biology III class from Manchester High School visited the junior high next door for Friday's 2002 Arbor Day celebration.
North Manchester was accredited as a Tree City. Indiana Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry District Forester Tim Eizinger furnished the town with a flag recognizing that status.
The students clapped.
"Can you get a little more enthusiastic?" asked Burnworth. The students began whooping and hollering.
North Manchester town manager Dan Hannaford accepted the Tree City award for 2001 from IDNR. Manchester has qualified six years in a row for the honor. The town is qualifying again this year.
The Arbor Day celebration is part of that process, said parks director and chairman of the town's tree commission, Brian Wagner.
"Tree City! Rock on!" said Burnworth, rousing the students.
Eizinger, 50, recognized a generation gap with the commemoration. But he said the approach to Arbor Day was very interesting.
"I guess I have to give them an A for creativity," he said. At normal Arbor Day gatherings, he said, a young tree is planted, usually at a school or park.
Back on stage, Burnworth described an airplane ride he took over North Manchester. From the plane, "the city was one big tree," he said. "We are one big tree here in North Manchester. Well, not really, but you know what I mean."
The biology III students had administered a quiz to a few junior high-schoolers on video. With "Jeopardy's" final song as background, high-schoolers asked the junior high students to identify specific trees by their leaves. In contrast, they were to name specific corporations by their logos.
The students didn't do so well guessing the silver maple, the weeping willow and the sycamore, said Burnworth. But they did get the AT&T and McDonald's logos correct.
"Yet trees are around us every day," said Burnworth.
The first year recognizing Arbor Day, it was on a Saturday and few people attended, said Wagner. Bringing it into the schools reaches impressionable generations.
Burnworth and his biology class are "what make it unique," he said. "They always make it exciting."
"It was awesome," said Natasha Ash, eighth grade, about the show.
"We love trees but we're not hippies though," said Johanna Caradante, eighth grade.
"For some reason, this town's crazy about trees," said Wagner. "But who wants to live in a parking lot?"
"Respect your trees and also don't spit on them 'cuz that's not cool," he said. The kids laughed all the more.
At the end of the school day Friday, every junior high student took home a white pine seedling. Leah Grant, a seventh-grader, said she was planning on planting her seedling in her yard.
"Is chlorophyll really borophyll?" asked Burnworth. The students gave him the response he wanted.
