Tupelo Garden Club celebrates 70th anniversary

TUPELO — Current and past members of the Tupelo Garden Club celebrated the group's 70th anniversary Wednesday at the Elvis Presley Birthplace in Tupelo.

The club supports the city through beautification efforts, childhood education and support of the community, said Kathryn Barrow, president of the Tupelo Garden Club and member since 2013.

Founded in 1954, the garden club currently has 45 active members.

"We have a lot of members whose mothers or mother-in-laws or grandmothers were members," Barrow said. "So, we have a lot of history just within the garden club."

Merrell Rogers, an active member since 1972, has taken part in a number of beautification projects around Tupelo and learned to arrange flowers during 52 years with the club.

With a longtime passion for gardening, Rogers said she loves attending the club's monthly meetings where she's sure to learn something new while spending time with other members.

Ann Godwin, an active member since 1975 said the projects she's seen have the most impact are plantings done in public places in the city, like at the Tupelo Memorial Park cemetery in the Joyner neighborhood. The forsythia that blooms there each spring is the result of the Tupelo Garden Club's efforts.

Tulips and daffodils have been planted at locations around the city, and the club planted magnolia and cypress trees near McCullough Boulevard after the 2014 tornado destroyed homes and downed trees.

Rogers and Godwin were honored at Wednesday's gathering alongside Joyce Johnston, 90, who is the oldest living member in the group.

Gayle Wicker, a former member of the garden club and wife of U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, was in attendance to celebrate the club's milestone. She first got involved as a member of the Tupelo Junior Garden Club, which was founded by her mother, Gayle McDaniel Long, who was a charter member of the Tupelo Garden Club and later served as president.

McDaniel Long was an active member until her death in 1994. Having practically grown up in it, the club is near and dear to Wicker's heart.

"What the Tupelo Garden Club does is help people appreciate the beauty of their community and learn how to keep their community beautiful," Wicker said. "Nature is a gift from God, and I believe that one of the roles of any garden club is helping people appreciate what has been given to us and helping us learn how to preserve that."

Barrow said she hopes the Tupelo Garden Club will continue to operate for another 70 years, supporting the community all the while. The club's principal focus is keeping the beauty of Tupelo alive, she said.

There are many public areas across the city made more beautiful by the garden club — places citizens drive by each day and that make up the landscape of Tupelo — that would look quite different without the Tupelo Garden Club's dedicated work over the last 70 years.