| Historical
Markers: Preston Somers garden |
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The Biology Department planted this garden
in 2002-2004, in honor of Professor Preston Somers. (Dr. Somers
helped to plant the indigenous shrubs and trees here -- not
knowing that his department would use this garden to honor him at the
time of his retirement!) This bronze
marker is to the left when you are facing the door that enters the
southwest wing of the long Berndt Hall building -- the door that is
closest to the McPherson Chapel. See the second image on this page
for an overview of the garden. Dr. Page Lindsey has described the history of this garden (8/10/2005): "The idea for the garden originated with Preston and myself. Preston talked with [then FLC President] Dr. [Bob] Dolphin and others about planting such a garden and we got permission to do so. We called an ex-student, Randy Mandel, who owns Rocky Mountain Native Plants in Silt, Colorado; Randy wanted to donate some native shrubs for free. Preston, myself, and Dave Jamieson [a third faculty member of the Biology Department] drove to Silt in May of 2003 and picked out 100 shrubs, brought them back, and planted them with the assistance of other Biology Faculty and students in the department. Later that summer Preston, Cynthia Dott of Biology and Gary Gianniny of the Geology Department put in a drip line. In April of 2004 [Biology Professor] John Condie wrote the inscription and we had the plaque made that now identifies the garden as being dedicated to Preston upon his retirement in May 2004. [Vice President for Business and Finance] Steve Schwarz' office paid for the plaque. Last summer (2004) the area got very weedy, so this year the Biology Department withdrew funds from a FLC Foundation account and had Diane Mee and Art Evans apply weed barrier and the bark/gravel landscaping you now see in place." Page mentioned that the clay "soil" (so typical of this region) was so compacted into the hardness of linoleum from the use of this space as a staging area during the construction of the Chemistry Building, they had to rent an auger to dig each hole. |
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©
2005 Center of Southwest Studies, Fort
Lewis College Page last
modified: August 10, 2005
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