It
is truly an honor to be standing before you as the 2013 recipient of
the
prestigious Alex J. Summers Distinguished Merit Award, and it is
especially
exciting to receive this award at the convention I had a major role in
organizing. This
truly is a
distinguished group of people that I am honored to become a part of. I wish to acknowledge those
previous
recipients that are in attendance here. Would
you please stand so we can thank you for your service to the society?
My
involvement in the American Hosta Society began in 1990 and has become
a love
and passion ever since. I
do, however,
have to acknowledge my wife, Becki, without whom this journey would not
have
been possible. It
is really a shared
award, as she has been at my side through the thick and thin of it all,
and has
been my unfailing supporter and cheerleader. Thank
you, Becki, for your love and support! It
is also very rewarding to have our family
here to share in this honor.
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My
journey into hostadom began in 1978, when I moved into my first home
that
didn’t have any landscaping, and I needed plants to “landscape” my
yard. I soon was
given the green hosta, H.
‘Lancifolia’,
the green with the
white margins, ‘Undulata
Albomarginata’,
and the green with the white center, ‘Undulata’. I had all three! These were easy to grow,
carefree plants, that
looked good most of the season. Soon
thereafter, I began receiving catalogs from Wayside Gardens and others,
and
quickly realized I didn’t have them all! In
1990, upon reading an ad in Horticulture
magazine for the American
Hosta Society, I wanted to learn more about these amazing plants and
joined. Jim Wilkins
was president at the time, and he
recently told me I was the only person he knew of that joined because
of that
ad.
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That
same year I attended my first convention in Minneapolis. There were these two crazy
guys walking around
with shoulder pads of hosta leaves! As
it turned out, they were the co-chairs of the convention, Bob Olson and
Roger
Koopmans. And all
Jack Barta and I could
come up with are “cheeseheads”. Upon
seeing all the wonderful varieties of hostas available in the gardens,
it
quickly cemented my love of this beautiful, diverse plant. The collector in me wanted
to add to my
collection, and I set out to get all of them! As
time went on, I realized this wasn’t an
option. Even if I
could acquire every
one, I wouldn’t have room to grow them. Don’t
worry Van Wade. I’m
not going to be able
to compete with your wonderful collection! I’ll
just come visit your collection when I
have hosta lust. At
this first
convention is where I discovered the Midwest Regional Hosta Society and
promptly joined it. Not
having enough
hosta immersion, I decided to start a local society in my area. In 1992, I founded the
Northern Illinois Hosta
Society.
In
1986, we moved into our newly built home with an acre of land! More room for hostas! Only it was all sun, not a
tree in sight. I
quickly planted some trees and became
creative with planting of hostas in areas shaded by the house, and
other
plants, such as tall ornamental grasses. This
is when The Hosta Patch began as a garage
sale, which quickly infuriated a couple of my neighbors. As a solution, I started
selling the plants
via mail order.
For
me, membership in an organization is more than just showing up to
events, and I
strongly believe in getting involved in organizations to which I
belong, in
order to offer my services to help make them strong and viable, whether
it be
volunteering at church, or, in this case, a hosta society. We all know it takes
volunteers to make an
organization strong and keep it thriving. One
of the most difficult tasks, as president
of each of the three hosta organizations I have served, was finding
people
willing to accept a role in serving in various positions. Human nature is to let
someone else do the work.
That’s not a
very healthy option to
sustain a volunteer organization. In
a
room this size, people have many talents that they can use to serve
this
society.
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