Tom Neugebauer stood in the warm afternoon sun of May 19 in front of Halethorpe Elementary School, just feet from a newly planted weeping cherry tree.

Standing in a ring of students and holding back tears, Neugebauer lifted a pair of scissors and cut a red ribbon that looped around the tree and through a small garden that now accents the front of the school building.

The ribbon cutting was the official opening of the Cheryl J. Neugebauer Memorial Garden, built in memory of Neugebauer's wife -- a reading specialist at the school who died of a blood clot in her brain Oct. 9 -- and other school community members who have died in past years, principal Jill Bordenick said.

Near Neugebauer, family members of Nicholas Warner also had scissors in hand. Nicholas was in the fourth grade at the school when he died Feb. 29, 2004, after being struck by a van at the intersection of Charleston and Third avenues while riding his bike.

Farther down were Rick Seibert; his mother, Helena Seibert, and his son, fifth-grader R.J. Seibert, of Halethorpe. R. J.'s mother, Dawn Seibert, had been a very involved parent at the school before she died Feb. 12 from lung cancer.

The opening of the garden commemorates the lives of Neugebauer, 34, Nicholas, 9, and Seibert, 40, and serves as a lasting reminder of their contributions to the school, school officials and family members said.

"This means that our loved ones will be remembered and honored for a long, long time, and I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart," Tom Neugebauer said.

"It's a beautiful thing they did here. This will be around forever," said Rick Seibert.

The garden includes the tree planted in memory of Nicholas five years ago, which school officials have meticulously maintained, said the boy's father, Kevin Warner.

"We were here five years ago to plant the first tree, and I can't believe they're keeping up with it," he said.

"It's great."

The expanded garden got its start when parents and teachers got together to decide how to honor Neugebauer, said Parent Teacher Association president Glenn Kromeke, whose daughter, Hannah, is in the fourth grade at the school.

"We wanted to do something to pay tribute" to Neugebauer, he said.

Parents began bringing in shasta daisies, black-eyed susans and purple cone flowers they had uprooted from their own gardens, said Cindy Waldron, whose son Matthew is in the third grade at the school on Maple Avenue.

Coreopsis and scabiosa flowers were soon added.

"We're hoping as years go on everything is going to spread out and prosper and look beautiful," Waldron said.

The school's drama club and choir performed three songs -- one about rain, one about the sun and one about the circle of life -- and other students played instrumental pieces at the ceremony.

Two students, including R.J. Seibert, read a poem Bordenick had written about the day.

After the ceremony, family members exchanged memories of their loved ones.

Dawn Seibert spent hours and hours at her son's school, a willing volunteer for many events and activities, her husband said.

"She donated a lot of her time to the school," said Helena Seibert, Rick's mother.

Cheryl Neugebauer was the type of teacher that students could count on for a little extra prize, her husband said.

"She'd come home with bags and bags of treats," he said, of her preparations for school.

"She was loving, caring, supportive, and she loved to talk," he said of the mother of their son Connor, who is 3. "She was very lively and vivacious."

Nicholas Warner was a "wildcat," a 9-year-old boy who "always wanted to have his hands on something," said his father, Kevin Warner, of Ellicott City.

Joining him at last week's ceremony were Nicholas's brother, Kevin Warner, Jr.; his sisters, Angela Warner and Brianna Schwartz, a first-grader at the school; his aunt, Sherry Merrill; two cousins, Jordan Merrill, a second-grader at the school, and Jayde Merrill, a kindergarten student there; and his great uncle, Donald Beatty.

Nicholas's mother, Gloria Schwartz, of Pasadena, and his grandmother, Thelma Cummings, of Halethorpe, who Nicholas was living with at the time of his death, were unable to attend the ceremony.

Nicholas was always interested in mechanical jobs, and would take apart old TVs neighbors had thrown away to investigate their inner workings, his father said.

Nicholas was "well-spirited; he was good-hearted," his father said.

"But I guess God wanted him."

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