Lincoln and Bemidji students plant trees after damaging storm

A bare stretch of the Bemidji High School front lawn that lost its trees in last year’s windstorm got a new row of 11 maple trees Thursday, planted by Lincoln Elementary kindergartners and former Lincoln students now attending the high school.

The planting turned a storm scar into a classroom lesson and a campus repair at once. Lincoln kindergarten teacher Mellissa Anderson said her students came into school talking about how scary the storm had been and how their homes and trees had been damaged, and she wanted to create something that helped ease that emotional impact while giving them a visible role in recovery.

That connection mattered at Bemidji High School because the front lawn had been hit hard when the June 2025 storm tore through the area. The wind event, which the National Weather Service described as a microburst and straight-line wind storm, brought gusts estimated as high as 120 mph and cut a roughly 10-mile swath through Beltrami County. Local officials said the storm caused catastrophic damage to property and the environment, with downed powerlines and widespread tree loss.

The city of Bemidji declared a local emergency effective at 8:50 p.m. on June 21, 2025. In February, Mayor Jorge Prince called June 21 a “defining moment” for Bemidji and said its effects would be felt for years. He said the storm caused about $10 million in damage to public property and left the city responsible for about a quarter of cleanup costs because the state did not meet the Federal Emergency Management Agency threshold for federal aid. Prince also said emergency crews answered 1,546 calls for service without any loss of life or serious injury.

The broader damage stretched far beyond the high school grounds. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources said the June 20-21 blowdown hit around 370 square miles and damaged more than 1,100 acres of DNR-managed forests, including about 300 acres of Lake Bemidji State Park. The agency later said at least 11,600 acres of forest in the Bemidji area were damaged, and salvage harvests have been used to make affected areas safer, reduce wildfire risk and speed reforestation.

Thursday’s planting also carried a full-circle element for Lincoln families. Anderson invited former Lincoln students now at Bemidji High School, creating a link between the youngest learners and older students who will pass the new trees every day. The Bemidji Area School District purchased the maples for the event.

The campus work fits into a wider local recovery effort that has included replanting drives across Bemidji. First National Bank Bemidji launched Project Canopy with a $25,000 seed donation through the Northwest Minnesota Foundation, and Bemidji State University’s Replant Our Roots campaign has drawn nearly 30 donors to plant more than 80 trees. For a community still measuring the storm in broken limbs, insurance claims and cleared lots, the new maples mark a small but permanent sign that the landscape is being rebuilt one tree at a time.