The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Late resident Jim Zampini to be honored on Arbor Day
The Fairport Harbor Tree Commission is planning an Arbor Day event to recognize one of the Northeast Ohio’s most prolific green thumbs at a tree-planting April 27 at Fairport Harbor Memorial Park.
The 2018 Fairport Harbor National Arbor Day Tree Planting Event is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. on Arbor Day and will recognize a Lake County horticulture icon: James W. Zampini.
Zampini, a longtime Fairport Harbor resident, nurseryindustry innovator and intrepid
community leader, died on April 15, 2017 at age 85.
Not only did Zampini make a name for himself and his family with his contributions to Lake County Nursery in Perry Township and Upshoot, LLC in Madison Township, he was also involved with organizations including the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, AmericanHort, the Ohio Nursery & Landscape Association, Nursery Growers of Lake County, Ohio, North Carolina Nursery & Landscape Association, Oregon Association of Nurseries and the Ohio Governor’s Commission of Agriculture and Ohio Nursery Stock Marketing Program, just to name a few.
“I have worked alongside Jim Zampini, who was a prior commissioner of the Fairport Harbor Tree Commission, former (Fairport Harbor Village) Council member and he had a long laundry list of accomplishments,” said Bernadette Armbruster, a current tree commission member who is helping to organize the April 27 event.
“He was a very active senior in our community and, to tell the truth, kind of put a lot of us younger people to shame.”
Armbruster summed up Zampini’s ironclad work ethic, forever-young attitude and service to his community and beyond during an April 5 phone interview, during which she called him “tenacious.”
“I can’t think of a better person to do a tribute to than James,” Armbruster said. “He was just a very tenacious man who said that, if you put the three Ps in place — people, plants and paint — you can improve your community.”
She used the list of Zampini’s accomplishments in his obituary as an example.
“That was an insane resume of the things he accomplished,” she said. “And I’m not talking about forming a bridge club or something like that. He was a part of some pretty amazing things — helping to get Fairport Harbor Lakefront Park established, working to get the new pier at Perry Township Park...”
In his April 17, 2017 feature article on Zampini, News-Herald Staff Writer
“I can’t think of a better person to do a tribute to than James. He was just a very tenacious man who said that, if you put the three Ps in place — people, plants and paint — you can improve your community.” — Bernadette Armbruster, current Fairport Harbor Tree Commission
David S. Glasier illuminated some more of the indelible marks Zampini made on Lake County, Northeast Ohio and beyond: He was a past president of the Nursery Growers of Lake County and honorary life member of the Ohio and International Chapters of the International Society of Arboriculture, Zampini was active in an array of civic endeavors, including the Lake Metroparks Board of Park Commissioners and the board of the American Heart Association. He also was the director emeritus of Lake Erie College in Painesville and the beautification and community liaison in Fairport Harbor.
Among some of his many accomplishments as a horticulturist, Zampini helped develop a number of species, including Crimson Pointe Flowering Plum trees and the Celebration Maple, tree.
Armbruster said it will be a Celebration Maple the Fairport Harbor Tree Commission will plant in Zampini’s honor April 27.
“Not only is the name of it awesome,” she said, “it’s also one of the custom-created trees for which Jim Zampini was partially responsible.”
The Arbor Day observance in Zampini’s honor in Fairport Harbor is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. April 27 and will be a rainor-shine event, Armbruster said.
The agenda includes proclamations from both Fairport Harbor Village officials and the Lake County commissioners in Zampini’s honor, an address by Zampini’s family and a poem reading.