The Columbia Press September 23, 2022 3 Peace tree campaign ends with healthy growth State unveils new Crater Lake plate Oregon DMV began issu- ing a new Crater Lake license plate design for passenger cars this month. Residents can order them at DMV offices or online at dm- v2u.oregon.gov/eServices. The Oregon Legislature established the Crater Lake plate in 2001. Since its launch, Orego- nians have ordered 400,000 sets, and there are about 250,000 currently valid on vehicles today. The redesign was released Sept. 9. The plate’s surcharge of $30 remains the same, due only when first obtaining the plates. The surcharge is in addition to regular title and registration fees, plate manu- facturing or replacement fee. The surcharge benefits the nonprofit Crater Lake Na- tional Trust. Plates can be ordered when applying for Oregon title and registration when buying a car, when renewing existing registration, or to replace current plates during the ve- hicle’s registration period — not at renewal. Those who already have Crater Lake plates can replace them with the new design without paying the $30 sur- charge, however, there is an additional fees for plate man- ufacturing and replacement. The Crater Lake plate is el- igible for passenger vehicles only. A four-year campaign to plant peace throughout Ore- gon came to an end Wednes- day with a celebration at the Oregon Department of For- estry’s headquarters in Salem. Peace trees – saplings grown from seeds of trees that survived the atom bombing of Hiroshima – were planted in Seaside’s Cartwright Park, Tillamook’s Carnahan Park and in 33 other communities across the state. Wednesday was Interna- tional Day of Peace as de- clared by the United Nations General Assembly back in 1981. Representatives from 45 organizations that planted a total of 51 peace trees were invited to the ceremony. Members of several Japa- nese-American organizations also attended. Oregon State Forester Cal Mukumoto, whose ancestry is Japanese-American, wel- comed guests and thanked them for making Oregon home to one of the densest concentrations of Hiroshima peace trees outside Japan. Longtime Animal Control supervisor retires Animal Control Su- support to local law pervisor Stephen Hil- enforcement in cases dreth has retired after of abuse. two decades serving “I have always val- Clatsop County. ued Stephen’s willing- Undersheriff Paul ness to accept calls or Williams called Hil- to respond to cases at dreth a “champion all hours of the day or of Animal Control” night to help his fellow Hildreth during his 18 years as deputies with difficult supervisor of the di- calls,” Williams said. vision, which operates the Hildreth also received certi- county animal shelter, issues fication for animals in disas- licenses, responds to animal ters with the county Emergen- abuse calls and cases of aban- cy Management Department. doned and nuisance dogs, and Hildreth developed strong finds new homes for dogs, relationships in the region, cats and other pets. from the local Clatsop Animal Hildreth earned certification Assistance organization to de- in animal abuse investigation, partments in other states. The which enabling him to offer relationships allowed him to acquire significant volunteer support and financial dona- tions and helped with the compassionate transfer of an- imals. He once drove more than 10 hours on his day off to reunite two dogs with their family, Williams said. “Stephen has always been there for the ben- efit of the dogs and cats en- trusted to his care.” Replacing Hildreth is Justin Dersham, a longtime sheriff’s deputy and detective. Dersham has served 15 years with the Sheriff’s Enforce- ment Division, including as deputy, forest and resident deputy, detective, and search and rescue coordinator. State Forester Cal Mukumoto Guest of honor was Hideko Tamura-Snider, who lives in Medford. She was 10 years old and living in Hiroshima when the city was flattened by the first of two atomic bombs by the United States dropped on Japan in August 1945. Buried in the ruins of her grandmother’s home, Hideko was able to free herself and survived the firestorm that later engulfed the city. Her mother and other relatives were killed. Hideko moved to the Unit- ed States, eventually settling in Oregon where she wrote two books about her experi- ences. She founded the One Sunny Day Initiative to pro- mote peace and nuclear dis- armament around the world. At her urging, arborist Mike Oxendine in Ashland obtained seeds of survivor trees from the Green Legacy Hiroshima organization. Its volunteers collect and send the seeds around the world as ambassadors of peace. After Oxendine germinated the seeds, Oregon Communi- ty Trees and the Oregon De- partment of Forestry collabo- rated in finding homes for the trees. The 51st tree was planted in Gresham on Sept. 19. “These peace trees not only convey a message of peace from the residents of Hiro- shima, they are symbols of survival and resilience in the face of unimaginable destruc- tion,” Mukumoto said. “Seeing them putting down roots in the good soil of Ore- gon and reaching for the sky gives me hope that people in our state – like the survivors in Hiroshima – can not only endure harsh times but can share with others the hard- won wisdom from having persevered through them.”