Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 16, 1991                   TAG: 9103160036
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WISE                                LENGTH: Short

COLLEGE TO PLANT 2,000 TREES ON RECLAIMED LAND

Campus and community volunteers will plant 1,850 seedlings in a 68-acrea area mined from 1976 to 1981, and 300 4-foot trees at the base of a high wall where the college plans to develop a fitness trail.

The site was reclaimed 10 years ago. The trees and seedlings are from the U.S. Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining.

A ceremonial planting of two sugar maple trees will take place March 28 at 11 a.m. near Cantrell Hall. Harry M. Snyder, Office of Surface Mining director, is scheduled to attend, along with other officials.

The office settled an enforcement and collections case with a defunct coal company in 1990 and got $5,000 in civil penalty funds. It donated the settlement funds to the college, which used them to buy 15 species of trees for planting on part of the campus to be developed for recreation.

The planned recreational complex will include a gymnasium, field house, playing fields and the fitness trail, all for both student and community use. Trees include alder, ash, birch, cypress, hackberry, sweet gum, sycamore, oak, crabapple and white pine. - Southwest bureau