Whenever family members of Linda Casey Orness drive through the lane at City Hall to drop off water bills, they'll see the tree that grows there in her memory, and they'll say hello.

Beside the drop box for bills, a feathery Palo Verde tree spreads its branches skyward. A plaque at its roots lists the years Orness lived, and adds, "You are the wind beneath our wings."

Orness died of cancer on March 23, 2002, at the age of 46. But the memory of her life stays alive, while the tree offers shade and greenery on the desert landscape.

Orness's tree was one of 40 dedicated, along with a dozen benches, on Saturday morning in a ceremony in the City Hall parking lot. During this three-times-a-year event February, April and October inscriptions on the plaques for both trees and benches are read aloud to an assembled crowd.

Placement and care of the trees and benches is a joint project of the Lake Havasu City Parks and Recreation Department and the Keep Havasu Beautiful committee, a volunteer group that organizes community improvement projects. Since it begin in 1988 with 12 trees along McCulloch Boulevard, the program has installed nearly 2,000 trees and benches.

Orness's mother, Pauline Casey, said that the family thought it was appropriate to plant the tree for her next to City Hall, since her father, Chuck, served as a council member from 1992-96.

And then, too, Orness always wanted to be in the light, said her sister, Kathy Wright. "She kept a light on all night," Wright said. "So her tree is right under the lights in the drive-through lane."

After Orness's ashes were scattered at Mazatlan, Mexico, as she had requested, the family wanted a memorial in Lake Havasu City for her, and settled on dedicating a tree.

Also present at the dedication were Orness's husband, Carl, and their daughter, Katie, all of Lake Havasu City.