By Jeff Whitten, correspondent

There’s now an apple tree on the campus of Bryan County Middle High School.

It was planted on Thursday afternoon by BCMHS senior Corey Collier and the school’s agriculture teacher, Riley Shockley, to honor Dennis Seger, the District 2 representative on the Bryan County Board of Education.

And while the ceremony orchestrated by Dr. Jana Shields kept pomp and circumstances at a minimum, Seger was moved. He called having a tree planted in his name an honor.

“This is the first time I’ve ever had something like this done for me; it’s touched my heart. It means a lot to me,” said Seger, now in his 18th year at the school, before thanking the school administration, faculty, and staff for “making our jobs on the board easy by making sure we’re doing what we need to be doing for the young people in this county so they can get a quality education. That’s the reason we’re here.”

Seger and his family, including his wife Michelle and daughters Logan and Linsey, are products of the Bryan County School system, and Seger is midway through his fifth term on the board as one of two representatives in North Bryan.

The idea to honor him by planting a tree on campus was BCMHS Principal Russ Winter’s, after students presented board members with pictures of trees in March during Georgia School Board Appreciation Week.

“Then we decided we needed to plant Mr. Seger a real tree,” Winter said.

He said the tree planting is a symbol of both new growth in North Bryan – a new BCHS is scheduled to open in 2029 near the current campus -- and the promise that the tree will one day bear fruit, just as students who pass through the halls of BCMHS will blossom into adults.

Before the tree was planted, BCMHS senior and JROTC Executive Officer Leah Johnson read aloud the poem, “The Heart of A Tree,” by Henry Cuyler Bunner.

At the end, Johnson noted, “planting a tree is an act of legacy because it expresses love for one’s home and community while contributing to a future that grows and benefits an entire nation, long after the planter is gone.”