Apple Orchard Dedication
The orchard is here in memory of Steven Sekel who was a past student that was also the son of our kindergarten teacher Mrs. Sekel. Steve passed away from an unexpected accident at the end of the school year. He was also a nephew to Karen and Jeff Lehman and a cousin to Ashley Lehman and Corey Plummer all employees at the School District of Crandon.
Many of the teachers and students here wanted to do something for Steve's family so we got an idea to buy some apple trees to honor him. The staff and their families donated enough money to buy 40 trees. On June 9, 2019 over 50 people came to the school to help plant the trees.
When the trees were planted they each had words hanging from them that represented character traits that Steve demonstrated throughout his life. However, the sun and rain made those words start to fade so during summer school some of the elementary students painted the words on bricks and placed them next to the trees so that the words could always be remembered and used to guide our students when visiting the orchard. If you visit the orchard you will notice that the bricks are painted in a red, white, and blue theme because Steve also loved the 4th of July.
As the summer went on, one of our past High School students, Jamie Sears noticed that the only place to sit during a visit to the orchard was on the large rock up front so he asked if he could make some benches for the orchard. Then Jamie and Troop 649 went to work and donated their time to make the 3 wooden benches that you see in the orchard.
Today the orchard dedication is our chance to see the beautiful sign that will hang in our orchard forever to remind people why it is here. The plaque for the sign was also purchased with staff donations along with some funds from the Steven Sekel Memorial Fund and our High School student Logan Sturzyl donated his time to design and fabricate the sign.
Below are the words that are shown on the plaque:
Brotherhood
The belief that all people should act with warmth and equality toward one another, regardless of differences in race, nationality, creed, ethnicity, etc…
Steve Sekel embodied brotherhood throughout his life; bucket list adventures took him far and the friendships he crafted surpassed borders. Steven was an incredible human with a zest for life who lived his motto, “Life is too short to hate”.
It is our hope that this orchard becomes a place to be used by everyone for lessons about kindness, character, friendship, healthy living, and harvesting ~ bringing together the school, families and community to share laughter while we work and nurture something special.
To know Steve a little or a lot was to love him.
Please click here to view the video
| 
