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Pride of N.C.: Elite fir is headed for trip to D.C.
Journal Photo by Jennifer Rotenizer
The White House tree is secured on a front-end loader before it is hauled from the ridge top.
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Published: November 29, 2008
CRESTON -- Jessie Davis hunched beneath the wide evergreen branches yesterday, revving up the chain saw that cut through the thick trunk of a 20-foot tall Fraser fir headed for the White House.
The tree toppled gently onto ropes laid out on the ground, and workers moved in to tie up the branches for the trip to Washington. The tree weighed between 1,000 and 1,500 pounds, and a gang of workers heaved it onto the forks of a front-end loader.
The loader carried the tree triumphantly in the air as it headed down the dirt road from the ridge top. The tree was loaded into a tractor-trailer from the N.C. Department of Agriculture.
Davis; his wife, Michele; her mother, Carol Pennington; and their River Ridge Tree Farm business partners Rusty and Ann Estes will present the tree as the official White House tree for the Blue Room in a grand ceremony on Sunday.
About 100 friends, family and representatives of the Christmas-tree industry were there when Davis felled the tree. They were snapping photographs of it as Davis got back to his feet, brushing wood chips off his jacket.
"This one's for Joe Pennington," he said softly in tribute to his late father-in-law. It has been 23 years since they worked together to transplant the sapling here on this ridge in the shadow of The Peak, Ashe County's highest mountain.
"He would just be totally amazed," Davis said.
North Carolina has had an amazing string of Christmas-tree wins in the highly competitive national contest that selects the grower who will provide the White House tree. This is the third time in the past four years that farmers in Ashe or Alleghany counties have supplied the White House tree.
In the Christmas-tree industry, furnishing the White House tree is the crowning honor that offers a marketing bonanza for North Carolina, the state that has produced nearly twice as many White House trees as any other.
In addition to the Blue Room tree, River Ridge also will provide about 25 smaller Christmas trees for the White House, including the ones for the offices of the president and vice president, according to the N.C. Farm Bureau.
In 2004, the N.C. Christmas Tree Association started emphasizing its local contest that picks the winners who advance to the nationals. The association raised the state prize money from $100 to $500, and also formed a contest committee whose members walk through the fields with fellow growers, helping them pick trees that will stand out to judges at the national contest.
The year after the new program was established, a tree from Alleghany County made it to the White House, starting the run that has sent three trees from North Carolina to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
"We felt like that was the best investment we ever made," said Linda Gragg, the executive director of the Christmas-tree association.
The Christmas-tree industry is the biggest employer in Ashe County, with 600 full-time workers and thousands more seasonal workers. There are about 2,200 workers in the fields and shipping areas this week.
About 2 million trees will be cut in Ashe County this year. Christmas-tree sales in the county last year were about $50 million, said Della Tucker Deal, the state's cooperative-extension agent for Ashe County.
Because the really tall trees, such as the White House tree, take so many years to grow and are few and far between, the wholesale cost of one might typically be more than $100 a foot, Gragg said.
River Ridge is donating the tree as a gift to the country.
No one knows for sure what President Bush might be doing come Sunday, but Carol Pennington said that officials have told her that there is a 90 percent chance that he will be at the ceremony along with Laura Bush.
A big crowd gathered yesterday afternoon for a send-off celebration at the Ashe County Courthouse in Jefferson.
Standing on the ridge moments before he cut the tree, Davis echoed a sentiment from his business partner.
"Like Rusty said ... getting to go to the White House, that's quite an honor, and we don't take it lightly," Davis said. "We believe North Carolina grows the best Christmas trees in the world."
■ Monte Mitchell can be reached in Wilkesboro at 336-667-5691 or at mmitchell@wsjournal.com.
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