The Register's smallest champion.

The first day of spring. For most young people that means baseball, spring vacation, a chance to hang out with friends. But for 14-year-old Jess Riddle, spring means just one thing - big tree hunting.

At an age when most children are more interested in Saturday morning cartoons than the natural world, Jess Riddle, then 6, was identifying tree species and noting differences between their leaves and bark. Jess' father, Doug, discovered early on his son's remarkable aptitude for math and science. Outdoors-lovers themselves, Doug and his wife Elaine have made the outdoors an integral part of Jess' childhood, vacationing yearly at Great Smoky Mountains National Park and hiking often on local trails. The result: a young man more inspired by AMERICAN FORESTS' biennial Big Tree Register than the trappings of consumer culture.

"I want Jess to see the joys of nature and the balance in life that you can find in nature," says Doug. "When we go out into the mountains, you can see there is an order to the world. The species show themselves - the order of life, the streams, the mountains, the trees - it's not chaos."

Now 14, Jess has visited 2.1 Georgia towns and cities, stopping frequently to identify and measure trees with a 100-foot ruler, a clinometer, an instrument specially designed to calculate tree height, and a monocular, which helps identify species of trees whose brances are too high to reach.

Some of Jess' more significant finds: a 130-year-old pecan of near-indigenous stock, and what may be the only known pre-blight American chestnut surviving in its native range.

"I like to look at all trees, but more specifically the big trees," says Jess. "I try to go out every other week, but it doesn't always work out that way with school work and other obligations..."

"And he's not able to drive yet!" laughs Doug.

Even so, Jess has measured trees in Arizona, California, and North Carolina. Using AMERICAN FORESTS' computational standards to measure and calculate tree heights, Jess and Doug have discovered several potential Georgia state champs as well as "cheater trees" - champions with multiple trunks or height errors. While visiting Tucson several years ago, Jess looked out his hotel room window and saw Arizona's state champion eucalyptus. When he measured it, however, the tree's dimensions failed to match its posted size.

"We don't take the word of someone else," Doug explains. "We go out and see the trees ourselves."

Big Tree hunter Will Blozan writes in his forthcoming book Tribute to the Big Tree Hunters that Jess' reputation preceded him. While talking with rangers at Smoky Mountain National Park, they "recalled his enthusiasm, and some experienced embarassment when Jess, at 9 years old, knew the trees better than the rangers!"

Jess spends his summers sharing his love of trees as a camp counselor for 5, 6, and 7-year-olds. Not a teenager's dream job?

"I'd rather have a job here than at a McDonald's because I'm outside," he says. "It's on 40 acres and there are some big trees there. I've counted 61 different species just on the campus."

The children are too young to remember specifics, Jess says, but he hopes his enthusiasm will help them gain an overall appreciation for nature. Far too often, he says, kids just don't think it's "cool" to explore the natural world.

"There's a stereotype against liking [nature]...There's some peer pressure not to be involved in that. It's not seen as something looked up to, like playing computer games or skateboarding or shopping."

But those sentiments don't stop Jess. "Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. If they're going to keep on saying it's not a good thing to do, then I think they're not a good person to hang out with. It's an issue of respect."

Although he hasn't yet nominated a national champ, Jess hopes to do so during the next year. Either way, he hopes to use his love of trees when he grows up.

"My favorite subject in school is scence, it interests me the most," he says. "I'd like to do something outdoors, not in an office...working in a national park would be nice."