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Green, 40 ft. tall and covered with fir Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Medford's Christmas tree is loaded onto a truck after being cut in the forest near Prospect on Friday. The tree will be hoisted into position Monday in Vogel Park and crews will begin installing a new set of decorations. Choosing Medford's official Christmas symbol takes being able to see the tree for the forest By MELISSA MARTIN Linda Beauchamp circled the tagged trees in the Prospect forest like a child choosing an ice cream cone from a 31-flavor case. "This one looks like someone laid on a pillow all night - a little flat on one side," she said. The next one had a big gap in the side. Another one seemed cursed with uneven branches. But then her tour guide showed her a 65-foot white fir that seemed to stand out from all the other trees in the Red Blanket region. "The perfect Christmas tree," Beauchamp said. "The perfect shape and it's got a little pep to it. The branches look like they have a little lift." Beauchamp, an administrative assistant at the Medford Urban Renewal Agency, had the job of choosing downtown Medford's Christmas tree this week. Then on Friday, the white fir she selected was cut, not by a lumberjack with a chainsaw but by a machine called a Timbco feller-buncher, said Kenneth Wienke, Boise Cascade district logging manager. The feller-buncher clamps the tree trunk and cuts it off at the base. If this wasn't a Christmas tree, it would be bucked by the de-limbing machine, which also measures and cuts the logs it holds to the correct length for milling. The branches left on the ground would be chipped and hauled as waste to a power plant in Medford that produces the steam used in Boise Cascade's plywood operations and also generates electricity, said Bob Smith, Boise Cascade's human resource manager. But this particular white fir didn't end up as wood waste or a plywood floor. Limbs and all, it was picked up like a toothpick, carefully cradled on a truck and hauled to town. On Monday, a crane will place it in the ground at Vogel Park, the brick area next to the Craterian Theater. And some of the same decorators that sponsor the popular Providence Festival of Trees at the Medford Armory will turn the tall timber into a Christmas tree. The tree's official lighting ceremony will be Nov. 27 and will feature a parade. Gone are the old ways of stringing lights vertically from a ring at the top of Medford's downtown tree. "We've sold our old decorations to the city of Lakeview," Beauchamp said. Downtown's new look will have 3,000 lights dancing throughout the boughs, glittering stars and big red balls hanging from the branches and an angel twinkling from the 40-foot-high top. Boise Cascade will trim the tree's height to fit the display. There will also be animated light displays - elves playing tug-of-war and tossing packages in Santa's sleigh. And throughout downtown, look for 12, 7-foot high Santas climbing brick buildings. But at the center will be the Prospect-grown white fir. When the stately evergreen is finished with its job downtown, it will be chipped and mulched into bark that's spread around Medford city parks. "You did good," Beauchamp said to Greg Johnson, the Boise Cascade forester who scouted his company's 140,000 acres of private timberlands to find the crown jewel. "I'm trained by my wife," Johnson said. "We'll turn this into the perfect Christmas tree." Reach reporter Melissa Martin at 776-4497, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.