As other volunteers watch, top left, Benny Hempstead carefully digs around the roots of the monkey puzzle tree near the airport in North Bend early Saturday morning. Hempstead and Mark Villers, who transported the tree to Bay Area Hospital, said they are used to dealing with large trees, the only difference being they are trying to keep this one alive. It made the job a little tougher and longer than they had planned on. With a North Bend police and fire escort, top right, the monkey puzzle tree arrives at Bay Area Hospital to be replanted in its new patch of dirt Saturday afternoon. It took 10 hours for the tree to be carefully dug out of the ground on Airport Lane in North Bend and moved to its new home at the hospital. Shortly after arriving at the hospital Saturday afternoon, Barbara Griffin walks around the tree to see how it fared in the trip from North Bend. She spearheaded the effort to have the tree moved after the Coos County Airport District threatened to cut it down to make room for a new airport terminal. She told one person she is the “monkey tree hugger.”

World Photos by Lou Sennick