A Joint Initiative Between     Heart of Wisconsin     Business & Economic Alliance and     Community Foundation of Greater     South Wood County

Home About Us B2B Club Breaking News Contact Donate Events / Programs Feedback Ideas Incubator Industry Clusters Links / Resources Progess Funds Progress Teams Public Art / Murals Publications		Breaking News May 11, 2005 - Hopa trees remind us that ideas can bloom Daily Tribune Editorial If you haven't already noticed the pink-blooming trees that dot the landscape of the Wisconsin Rapids area, get out and look around the community this week. The flowers soon will fall to the ground, and a new batch won't reappear until next spring. We can trust the Hopa crabapple trees to blossom every spring - some years better than others - thanks to the hard work and generosity of community members 40 years ago. In 1965, the Wisconsin Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce and Riverview Hospital Auxiliary coordinated an effort to sell the Hopa trees to residents, with proceeds going to the auxiliary. The effort provided $4,000 for the hospital volunteers and 4,000 new Hopa trees throughout the area. The idea started with a conversation between Dan Meyer, who was then president of the chamber, and local attorney Richard Brazeau - who had a vision of a flowering city similar to Washington, D.C. in the spring. Meyer now recalls telling Brazeau, who died in 1968, that it was a great idea and then promptly appointing him to lead a chamber committee that would take charge of the project. The conversation and history of the Hopa project are documented in "The Fat Memoirs," the fourth in a series of local history books written by Dave Engel. President Johnson and the U.S. Secretary of the Interior both wrote to organizers in 1965, congratulating them on the project to make Wisconsin Rapids the "Hopa Tree Capital," according to Engel's book. A year later, the city celebrated the Hopa Tree Arts Festival and started the Miss Wisconsin Rapids Area Pageant. Times have changed. The Chamber of Commerce now is called the Heart of Wisconsin Business & Economic Alliance, Wisconsin Rapids removed the flowering trees along the west side of the Wisconsin River in 2001 to extend the Ahdawagam Walking Trail, and the Hopa Tree Arts Festival has morphed into Grand Riverfest. But the surviving Hopa trees serve as an annual reminder that a little vision - mixed with leadership, cooperation and dedication - can make the world a more beautiful place. Even if that world is just your front boulevard. Those same ingredients are needed to sustain such big ideas as the Community Progress Initiative, which is just 1 year old but already has gained attention from national organizations and won a top state award. The pink bloom this week also comes with a tinge of sadness for many long-time residents, because Brazeau's vision specifically included a Hopa plantation along the riverfront in downtown Wisconsin Rapids. That is the one place where the trees were eliminated. Perhaps it's time for another, smaller effort to return flowering crab trees along the river. They might not be Hopa trees. City Parks Superintendent Dave Hoks says he can't find a place that sells them. But he's not opposed to the idea of planting similar-looking crab trees - where there's enough space. Not to put anyone on the spot, but the community could avoid the use of tax dollars if, say, some local nonprofit organizations were to orchestrate such an effort, as they did in 1965. It's just an idea. But then, it was just an idea for Brazeau 40 years ago.
		Copyright © 2005, Community Progress Initiative, South Wood County & Town of Rome