Pictured above: City Manager Craig Stephenson, Marketing Specialist Dana Bright, Mayor Homer Nicholson, Keep Oklahoma Beautiful Board Member Chris Knight, Parks and Recreation Director Eric Newell and Commissioner Paul Taylor
The City of Ponca City’s Parks and Recreation Department, won the 2022 Environmental Excellence Award in the municipal category for “Government Programs – Municipality under 25,000” at the 2022 Keep Oklahoma Beautiful Environmental Excellence Celebration.
Partnering with Phillips 66, the Parks and Recreation staff worked together to create and Urban Forest. Over the course of years, the City has lost hundreds of trees to weather and disease. With a $25,000 grant from Phillips 66, Parks and Recreation staff and Phillips 66 volunteers planted the initial 200 trees in grow bags at a newly established tree farm.
When the trees reach a certain height, the Parks Department will plant 50 trees each year in one of the city’s 28 parks.
