Bentonville Garden Club Endows Scholarship Fund

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Bentonville Garden Club president Cynthia Coughlin, right, presented a check to complete a $25,000 scholarship endowment for horticulture students at the University of Arkansas. Also pictured are, from left, Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Science development director Mark Power, garden club member Marilyn Bogle, associate vice chancellor for development Sandy Edwards and horticulture professor Curt Rom.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The Bentonville Garden Club has endowed a $25,000 scholarship fund for horticulture students at the University of Arkansas. Scholarships will be awarded starting in 2007.

“We are extremely grateful to the Bentonville Garden Club,” said David Hensley, head of horticulture department. “The club and several of its members, individually, have been terrific supporters of the program and our students.” Students receive annual horticulture scholarships from several other garden clubs, but Hensley said, “This is the only endowed scholarship by a garden club that I know of, anywhere.”

As club members began raising money toward the endowment, celebrity gardener, P. Allen Smith, helped the club achieve its goal. Smith attended a club luncheon as a guest of member Marilyn Bogle, and he offered to donate a tour of his Little Rock garden for the club’s scholarship endowment project. Bentonville Garden Club president, Cynthia Coughlin, said the club decided in 2004 to fund a $25,000 scholarship endowment over four years with the proceeds of spring plant sales and an annual fall silent auction. But the bids for 17 places on the P. Allen Smith garden tour brought in $15,000, and the endowment was completed ahead of schedule. The garden tour event will include two lunches - one at the Governor’s Mansion and another at the Clinton Library.

Bogle said, “The Bentonville Garden Club is delighted to endow this scholarship for the University of Arkansas for the education of future horticulturists who may benefit from the scholarship money.”

The Bentonville Garden Club was founded in 1948. The club has 50 members and is active in community beautification and other projects such as youth education and gardening therapy for nursing home residents.

Smith is the host of “P. Allen Smith Gardens” on network television, “P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home” on public television, and author of national best-selling gardening books. He is a Little Rock native and current resident.

This scholarship fund was endowed during the Campaign for the Twenty-First Century, which recorded $1.046 billion in gifts and pledges designated toward student and faculty endowments, academic programs, capital improvements and University Libraries when it concluded June 30, 2005.