Garden Club Scholarships for 2011-2012

The Scholarship Committee recommended and the Board has approved the awarding of four Garden Club of Austin scholarships for the 2011-2012 school year. We had fewer than usual applicants but the four excellent candidates we have chosen were so close in our rankings that we decided to split the available money evenly four ways. Each student was awarded $1750.

Anna Boettcher will be a senior at Texas A&M majoring in horticulture. Her main interest is in landscape design and she hopes someday to own her own business "creating beautiful designs with self-sustainability in mind." She especially enjoys researching underutilized plants and finding where in her designs these unusual plant materials can best be used. Anna has excellent grades and is active in the Horticulture Club and the Student American Institute of Floral Design. She also works at a local retail nursery in College Station.

Marshall Burdick, who is from Georgetown, will be a sophomore in the honors program at Tarlton State, majoring in horticulture. He is also interested in biology and entomology. He volunteers in the campus greenhouse and is a member of the Horticulture Club. Marshall received a smaller stipend from our club last year and has done so well in his first year of college that his award was increased this year.

Lindsey Felps, who is from Round Rock, will be a junior at Texas A&M majoring in horticulture and agronomy. She received a scholarship from the club last year and attended the Christmas Banquet. Her career goal is to have her own nursery and to help others learn more about sustainable farming. At A&M she works as a volunteer on the Howdy Farm, a sustainable on-campus farm. She volunteers through the Baptist Student Ministry working with elementary school children and she teaches conversational English to international students. She is also part of the Aggie Wrangler dance team, teaching Country and Western and swing dance to students and others in the community.

Lauren Garcia will be a senior at Texas A&M with a double major in horticulture and landscape architecture and a minor in business and urban and regional planning. She is putting herself through college and has a grade point of 3.9 on a 4.0 scale. On an internship in Guatemala she worked with local farmers to help them better manage crops and developed a Junior Master Gardener program. On a study abroad program in Costa Rica she designed an ecological visitors' center for a rainforest trail. This summer she will work as a paid intern at Moore Farms, a public garden in South Carolina. She is Vice President of the Horticulture Club and also works with Boy Scouts in College Station. After college she hopes to earn a Master's degree and plans a career in a botanical garden or arboretum or teaching at the university level.

The Scholarship Committee is chaired by Norman Wagner. Members include Beverly Bardsley, Jane Faust, Barbara Wagner and Joe Yura. It is a privilege to encounter, if only on paper at this point, such bright, enthusiastic, dedicated and caring young people. Money for the scholarships comes from the interest on our scholarship endowment, funded by gifts or bequests from club members. Some of the money raised from plant sales and our auction also goes toward scholarships.