HRI Awards Five Scholarships

The Horticultural Research Institute (HRI), the research affiliate of the American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA), recently awarded five scholarships to four deserving students.

Emily Duyst is the recipient of the 2009 Usrey Family Memorial Scholarship of $750. She is a senior at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, majoring in environmental horticulture with a focus in landscape design. Her passion for plants and landscapes grew from her agriculture background on her family farm and while working at a local plant nursery. Emily has numerous extracurricular interests that include piano instruction, gardening, scrapbooking and volunteering at her local hospital. After graduation, Emily hopes to work as a residential landscape designer in the central coast of California.

Sam Bookhardt has won the 2009 Muggets Scholarship of $750 as well as the 2009 Spring Meadow Scholarship of $1,250. Bookhardt is a freshman botany major at Humboldt State University in Arcata, Calif. He has shown a great commitment to horticulture and serving his community by working more than 200 volunteer hours at a local botanical garden, elementary school and during two church missions. Growing carnivorous plants, playing drums, guitar and French horn are some of his extracurricular activities. His student work includes a display and science bog study garden featuring native carnivorous plants at Berry Botanic Gardens in Portland, Ore. “His unbridled enthusiasm, dedication and depth of knowledge of carnivorous plants universally impressed staff, board members and other volunteers,” said one supervisor at the gardens.

The 2009 Timothy S. and Palmer W. Bigelow. Jr. Scholarship of $ 1,750 went to Benjamin Madeiras, who attended Martha’s Vineyard regional high school and continued his post-secondary education at the Stockbridge School of Agriculture in Amherst, Mass. He earned an associates degree from Stockbridge in Landscape Contracting. Currently, he is enrolled as a sophomore in Landscape Architecture at the University of Massachusetts — Amherst. “This scholarship helps me focus on my schoolwork knowing that I don’t have to worry as much about the financial aspect of college life,” Madeiras said. “It is also reassuring that there are people in this country that trust and believe in students, and reward them for hard work and good citizenship.”

And the 2009 Carville M. Akehurst Memorial Scholarship of $2,000 was awarded to Tristan Cleveland, a senior at The Pennsylvania State University with a major in landscape architecture. “Open, natural areas are important to me, society, and the environment, yet they continue to be developed without thought to future impacts,” Cleveland said. “I chose this major because it allows me to direct development — for development will continue to happen — in the most sustainable manner.”

For more information on HRI, visit www.hriresearch.org.