(gentle music) -[Narrator] Across the grasslands and the hills of Nebraska.

Some names don't vanish.

They grow.

In the 1990s, near Calamus Reservoir State Recreation Area in Rock County, a forest of sorts was planted across the rolling grasslands, but not the dense kind one might imagine.

(gentle music) Dale Sostad cultivated over 80,000 trees between 1992 and 2010.

Nearly all planted by machine and irrigated with six pivots to help them thrive.

(gentle music) Sostad Forest is a signature of trees, a living tribute set within a broader area of conservation plantings.

Nature took its own course and many are now gone.

Yet every summer, as the leaves grow and the canopy fills, you can read Dale's last name from the air.

(gentle music) Just 24 miles west.

Another family name lives on in Cedar.

On ground handed down through generations.

Dale and Audrey Caskey raise three daughters.

A careful steward of the land, Dale planted trees not just for function, but for legacy.

And as a father of girls.

Dale found a creative way to ensure his family name would carry on.

(gentle music) Shaped by time and manicured by nature, the Caskey name lives on.

(gentle music) Tucked into a quiet stand of trees near Rockville, two letters rise from the ground.

L and B in the mid 70s, Lawrence Burman, a teacher and photographer, set out to plan to living tribute to his parents and to himself.

With five friends and a couple of post hole diggers.

They put more than 800 trees in the ground in a single evening.

(gentle music) Over the next 14 years, Lawrence planted more than 10,000 trees and shrubs, all provided by Nebraska's Natural Resource District.

(gentle music) His goal was simple give back to the land, creating shelter, windbreaks, erosion control and habitat for wildlife.

(gentle music) In 1967, Nebraska marked the 100th anniversary of its statehood, a milestone honored in communities across the state In Fullerton, Members of the Future Farmers of America planted a grove of evergreens to honor the centennial.

(gentle music) And in Hickman Hickman at Wagon Train Lake State Recreation Area.

Local youth groups planted their own tribute.

The numbers have since faded into the forest, but the spirit of that centennial planting remains.

(gentle music) In a state once called "The Tree Planter's State" and the birthplace of Arbor Day.

Our roots continue to grow in unexpected ways.

(gentle music) In a peaceful forest, planted one tree at a time, or as a signature visible only from the sky and lasting for as long as nature allows.

(gentle music)