Former IU Trustee donates 150 trees to campus

Former IU Trustee Stephen Ferguson and his wife, Connie, have donated 150 trees to IU-Bloomington, University officials announced Tuesday, kick-starting the effort to replace the 300 campus trees lost during  powerful storms in May.

In a press release, President Michael A. McRobbie said he hopes other friends and alumni will pitch in to help restore the campus. McRobbie and his wife, Laurie Burns McRobbie, are personally providing the funding to replace 30 trees in a grove near Bryan House.

“Anyone who has walked through campus and viewed first-hand the many fallen trees knows that there is much hard work yet to be done,” McRobbie stated. “That is why we are so deeply grateful to Steve Ferguson for his most generous gift, which we hope will inspire others to contribute to the tree-restoration effort and ultimately help make our campus even more beautiful than it was before.”

According to university officials, areas that sustained the most damage were the Arboretum, Dunn’s Woods, the north side of the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation and stretches along the Jordan River and Third Street.

IU Vice President for Capital Projects and Facilities Tom Morrison called the effort to replace the trees and clean up the damage an “enormously daunting task — one that may take years — but we are already making significant progress.”

In the days after the storm, Morrison said the cleanup would be hard, expensive work but that it gives the University a chance to make the campus look even better.

“The storm was devastating to the landscape,” Morrison said. “But we look at it also as an opportunity.”

— Jake New