Each year, a 100-foot Douglas fir Christmas tree travels more than 1,500 miles to stand in Crown Center Square in Kansas City, Missouri. Crown Center is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hallmark Cards. The tree is a gift to Kansas City from Cascade Timber Consulting, Inc. in Sweet Home, Oregon. RAM Trucking, Inc. transports the tree from Oregon to Missouri on a six-day trip through Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, and Missouri. The trip runs in daylight hours only because of the 115 foot length from front of truck to tip of tree.
The tree is the focus of fundraising efforts by the Mayor's Christmas Tree Fund of Kansas City. This fund benefits needy individuals and organizations which otherwise would not have clothing, toys, and food for Christmas. It is cut on Cascade Timber Consulting's Swamp Mountain Forest October 28th, and leaves for Kansas City on November 1st. Milton Moran, Director of Sales and Logging Operations for Cascade Timber Consulting and Dale Middlestadt, Vice President of RAM Trucking supervises the crane and cutting operation. The lighting ceremony is on November 28th and draws between 5,000 to 6,000 on-lookers.
Once the tree comes down at the end of December, the branches go to the local Parks and Recreation Department for grinding into mulch for trails. The tree trunk is milled into wooden ornaments designed by Hallmark artists, with the proceeds going to the Mayor's fund. The 2008 tree benefits families in 2009. In 2007, the Mayor's Christmas Tree Association helped over 33,000 people have a Merry Christmas. Families received toys and food from the $408,000 in ornament sales and cash contributions. The Mayor's Tree Association cooperated with the Marine Corps. "Toys for Tots" in the distribution of over 20,000 toys, and erected Santa Wonderlands at two locations in Kansas City.
For more information, please contact:
Chris Ronan - Crown Center - (816) 274-8374 or
Dale Middlestadt -RAM Trucking -(541) 466-5022