UF/IFAS Okeechobee County Extension Service

458 Highway 98 North

Okeechobee, FL 34972-2578

Phone: (863) 763-6469

E- mail:  dfculbert@ifas.ufl.edu

August 23 , 2007

Feature Article - for release the week of   August 26, 2007

Dan Culbert - Extension Horticulture Agent  

The Class of 2007

The end of summer is not the usual time for a graduation, but that’s what’s going on this week at the Okeechobee Extension office.  Through our long hot summer, six locals dedicated many hours of study and practice learning the ins and outs of Florida Friendly gardening.

I’m pleased to announce that we are recognizing our latest crop of green thumbs, a half a dozen volunteers that are beginning their careers as Florida Master Gardeners.  An informal presentation will be made this Wednesday with the help of our county’s most veteran Master Gardener, Judge Bill Hendry.

Master Gardeners are volunteers that work with the Cooperative Extension Service, bringing research-based information about Florida Yards and gardens to local residents.  To become Master Gardeners, these volunteers spent more than 60 hours in the classroom and then devoted many more hours at home reading and studying all about plants, soils, pests, and problem solving methods.

 Okeechobee Master Gardeners

Our county’s first Master Gardener was Rudy Suchel, who gave the community too many hours to count. He passed away in 2002, and is remembered each year when our 4-H program recognizes several youth who demonstrate Rudy’s gifts with the Suchel Spirit of Volunteerism Award. 

In 1996, Bill Hendry traveled over to Ft. Pierce to gain his Master Gardener training with other Treasure Coast volunteers, and over the last decade Judge Hendry has also pitched in to help local gardeners here in Okeechobee.  Since 2003, our Extension program has trained eight other volunteers for Okeechobee.

This new class now begins to pay-back the public for all their new-found knowledge.  They have agreed to provide a minimum of 75 hours of volunteer service during the next year.

Our new graduates will start out working along side local veterans Terri Lane and Harold Mounts in our Tuesday afternoon Master Gardener Clinic.  This is the time of the week when all kinds of interesting pest and plant problems are presented from the public.  (FYN Program Assistant Angela Sachson is also a Master Gardener, but she is now a grant-funded employee, helping to bring Florida-Friendly landscaping ideas to folks in Glades, Highlands and Okeechobee counties.)

Once they gain enough confidence, we hope to expand our MG clinic hours to another day of the week.  Throughout the next year, they will also help our office in other places as well, answering gardening questions at community events, taking on speaking invitations and helping folks around the Lake to get Green.

 

Here is our graduating class of 2007:

 *       Pat Johnson has learned by doing while helping Kaye Cude with many of her gardening activities.  She decided to learn more about horticulture in order to be a better helper.  She too is a retired teacher, having traveled down the road from Michigan many years ago.  Pat feels that sharing new knowledge with others will provide her with a great deal of personal satisfaction.

*       Lee Campbell is a long time resident of Okeechobee and is a self-professed backyard gardener.  She enjoys doing things to encourage wildlife and butterflies in her Florida Yard.  One of our class exercises was to design a butterfly garden suitable for our area; Lee has already put much of her plan in place.  She gains a great deal of satisfaction when sharing her knowledge with others.

*       Fran Everly moved to this area from Lake Worth a few years back, and now that she is retired, has taken on her goal of completing the Master Gardener class that she held for many years down in Palm Beach.  She is focused on discovering new methods of pest management that involve least-toxic strategies, and is working on her perennial garden here in Okeechobee.  Learning new skills, service and sharing are also key words in her vocabulary.

 *       Bobbie Fuller is the only one of our class that had to work the class time around her “regular job”. Thanks to her supervisors at Riverside National Bank, she was able to complete the Master Gardener training.  She is preparing to spend her pay-back time as a leader of a new 4-H Horticulture Club.  (Please contact our office if you know of any kids 5-18 who want to learn about plants and gardening in this new 4-H club!)  Bobbie has been a gardening enthusiast for the past 30 years and loves growing new plants, which give her a great deal of personal satisfaction.

*       Ralph “Wendy” Watts was an engineering inspector in Ft. Lauderdale and Jupiter before he retired and moved up to this area. He puts the practical approach to work in his landscape, and recently showed the new Okeechobee gardening club members how to make a trellis from plastic pipe.  Wendy’s gardening skills were identified by the Florida Yards and Neighborhood program when his Yard was recently recognized as the first Florida-Friendly Yard in Buckhead Ridge.

I’ve placed more information on our Okeechobee web page, http://okeechobee.ifas.ufl.edu.  If you need additional information on our new class of volunteers and how you can be part of the next class of Master Gardeners, send us an email to okeechobee@ifas.ufl.edu or call us at 863-763-6469.  Local residents can stop by our office at 458 Hwy 98 North in Okeechobee, and visit our Okeechobee County Master Gardeners from 1 to 3 PM on Tuesday afternoons.  Happy Graduation Day!

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