Riley's Tree

By now many people have noticed that the tree in front of the Cavendish Town Elementary School has been taken down.
 
Planted in 1988, in memory of Riley Bourgois, a student at CTES who died of cancer,  the lighting of Riley’s tree for many years ushered in the Cavendish Holiday season.

Over the years, lots of comments were made about the top of the tree, which either didn’t come to the typical point of a “Christmas tree,” or had been pruned off all together. The reason for this was the tree had pine bore infection.

Numerous things have been tried to treat the disease, including pruning back infected areas. Unfortunately, of late, the infection had spread considerably and the school felt the best course of action was to remove it all together.

 According to the principal George Thomson, the school is willing to plant another tree if this is of interest to the community. He also noted that in recent years, fewer and fewer people have come to the annual tree lighting and in fact, it wasn’t held last year.