Ten Years of Memorable Symposia
By AIB President, Marvin Miller
Certainly, over our 10 years of America in Bloom Symposia, we’ve had many memorable speakers and tours, and our recent 10th Anniversary Symposium was no exception. How many of these events do you remember? Here’s just a particular memory or two from each of our symposia over the last 10 years:
In 2002, we visited Washington, DC, but we were headquartered in Reston, Virginia. We came to the area while the sniper shootings were still unresolved and arrived within a couple of days of the last shooting. Our opening Symposium session included one of the architects responsible for the 1964 creation of the planned City of Reston. He challenged us to remember the ecology of the site. That year’s Symposium co-chair Katy Moss Warner, then President of the American Horticultural Society, also spoke and introduced us to the concept of “plant blindness,” telling us the landscape needs flowers to be noticed by most, otherwise it’s just a ubiquitous green that is never seen.
In 2003, our Symposium travelled to Chicago, Illinois, where we had great opportunities to visit the gardens of the Chicago Park District just across from our hotel. Then mayor, Richard Daley welcomed us and told us, “I’d like to say we plant flowers and trees because I like them. But it’s hard to sell the City Council on something just because I like it. So, we tell them we plant because it’s good for the citizens, good for the businesses, and good for the economy. We talk about reducing crime, helping students do better in school, creating more pleasant shopping districts, and the like.”
In 2004, we visited Indianapolis, Indiana. The mayor welcomed us and showed us an inner-city tourism district that included a state park with a horticultural theme, the city zoo, the NCAA Hall of Champions, the convention center, and all the hotels and restaurants one could hope for. He also told us how horticulture played a critical role in the urban renewal of his city.
Our 2005 Symposium was held in Cleveland, Ohio, where we could see cluster dynamics at work. Within a 60-mile radius of Cleveland, 18 communities had entered the AIB contest within our first four years. More have become involved since. Indeed, eight communities in Northeast Ohio were involved in the tour that year. And we were welcomed by Ohio’s First Lady, Hope Taft.
When we went to Eureka Springs, Arkansas in 2006, it was like we stepped back in time to the 1800s. We were welcomed by this small community of about 2,300 residents, which annually hosts nearly a million visitors, and we were given the key to the city. Incidentally, those 2,300 people protect over 900 structures in the city’s downtown that are on the National Register of Historic Places. Eureka Springs residents told us of three less-than-successful and increasingly-more-expensive attempts at using consultants to help the city with its infrastructure planning and how they got feedback from the judges’ comments in their three entries in the AIB contest.
In 2007, Rockford, Illinois was our destination. On tour, we were treated to a collection of city parks of historical significance, and the mayor declared that AIB had brought the city together like never before. Previously, folks had talked about the good side of town or the poor side of town, but Rockford’s involvement with AIB had helped the divided city become a real community.
Columbus, Ohio, our organization’s headquarters city, hosted our 2008 event. In Columbus, we visited the restored Franklin Park Conservatory and the surrounding parks and community gardens, toured the historical gardens of the Governor’s Mansion, and toured historic German Village. We learned how horticulture can play a critical role in the efforts of a Convention and tourism Bureau and had a back-to-basics program focusing on each of the eight criteria.
Hershey, Pennsylvania, also known as Chocolate Town, USA, hosted our 2009 Symposium. We learned how one man’s vision could build a candy empire, a historic hotel, exquisite rose gardens, a school with an endowment making it possible for anyone to attend, and a factory town that all could admire. We also heard the story of how a college student was able to inspire generations of medical students to give back to the city that was going to host them during their schooling, by organizing an annual clean-up day.
The Arch, the Gateway to the West, and the Mississippi River provided the setting to last year’s Symposium in St. Louis. We learned about community gardening projects that helped landscape the city, feed its poor, rehabilitate criminals, and restore aging neighborhoods. The city’s famous fleur-de-lis-endowed St. Louis Planter offered a view of container gardening on a grand scale. The planter was originally designed to line Kiener Plaza, which was next to our host hotel, but it has taken a life of its own, as it is now being adopted for other installations and by other cities.
This brings me to our Symposium in 2011. This was a great Symposium. I would personally like to thank co-chairs Katy Moss Warner and Tom Underwood for their efforts with organizing this year’s Symposium. They delivered great speakers and great tours! We heard from both the White House Chief Florist Laura Dowling and from Ed Avaolos, Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs for the USDA. Joe Lamp’l, author and television personality, and author Dennis Snow offered phenomenal keynote presentations. It was indeed a great event, which afforded us the opportunity to look back, while at the same time allowed us to look forward, as we unveiled a new judging grid to go along with our new simplified list of criteria.
I hope we see many more of you at our future Symposia for even more memorable events. By the way, next year we will be in Fayetteville, Arkansas, September 20 – 22, 2012. Please be sure to mark your calendars – you won’t want to miss it!
Certainly, over our 10 years of America in Bloom Symposia, we’ve had many memorable speakers and tours, and our recent 10th Anniversary Symposium was no exception. How many of these events do you remember? Here’s just a particular memory or two from each of our symposia over the last 10 years:
In 2002, we visited Washington, DC, but we were headquartered in Reston, Virginia. We came to the area while the sniper shootings were still unresolved and arrived within a couple of days of the last shooting. Our opening Symposium session included one of the architects responsible for the 1964 creation of the planned City of Reston. He challenged us to remember the ecology of the site. That year’s Symposium co-chair Katy Moss Warner, then President of the American Horticultural Society, also spoke and introduced us to the concept of “plant blindness,” telling us the landscape needs flowers to be noticed by most, otherwise it’s just a ubiquitous green that is never seen.
In 2003, our Symposium travelled to Chicago, Illinois, where we had great opportunities to visit the gardens of the Chicago Park District just across from our hotel. Then mayor, Richard Daley welcomed us and told us, “I’d like to say we plant flowers and trees because I like them. But it’s hard to sell the City Council on something just because I like it. So, we tell them we plant because it’s good for the citizens, good for the businesses, and good for the economy. We talk about reducing crime, helping students do better in school, creating more pleasant shopping districts, and the like.”
In 2004, we visited Indianapolis, Indiana. The mayor welcomed us and showed us an inner-city tourism district that included a state park with a horticultural theme, the city zoo, the NCAA Hall of Champions, the convention center, and all the hotels and restaurants one could hope for. He also told us how horticulture played a critical role in the urban renewal of his city.
Our 2005 Symposium was held in Cleveland, Ohio, where we could see cluster dynamics at work. Within a 60-mile radius of Cleveland, 18 communities had entered the AIB contest within our first four years. More have become involved since. Indeed, eight communities in Northeast Ohio were involved in the tour that year. And we were welcomed by Ohio’s First Lady, Hope Taft.
When we went to Eureka Springs, Arkansas in 2006, it was like we stepped back in time to the 1800s. We were welcomed by this small community of about 2,300 residents, which annually hosts nearly a million visitors, and we were given the key to the city. Incidentally, those 2,300 people protect over 900 structures in the city’s downtown that are on the National Register of Historic Places. Eureka Springs residents told us of three less-than-successful and increasingly-more-expensive attempts at using consultants to help the city with its infrastructure planning and how they got feedback from the judges’ comments in their three entries in the AIB contest.
In 2007, Rockford, Illinois was our destination. On tour, we were treated to a collection of city parks of historical significance, and the mayor declared that AIB had brought the city together like never before. Previously, folks had talked about the good side of town or the poor side of town, but Rockford’s involvement with AIB had helped the divided city become a real community.
Columbus, Ohio, our organization’s headquarters city, hosted our 2008 event. In Columbus, we visited the restored Franklin Park Conservatory and the surrounding parks and community gardens, toured the historical gardens of the Governor’s Mansion, and toured historic German Village. We learned how horticulture can play a critical role in the efforts of a Convention and tourism Bureau and had a back-to-basics program focusing on each of the eight criteria.
Hershey, Pennsylvania, also known as Chocolate Town, USA, hosted our 2009 Symposium. We learned how one man’s vision could build a candy empire, a historic hotel, exquisite rose gardens, a school with an endowment making it possible for anyone to attend, and a factory town that all could admire. We also heard the story of how a college student was able to inspire generations of medical students to give back to the city that was going to host them during their schooling, by organizing an annual clean-up day.
The Arch, the Gateway to the West, and the Mississippi River provided the setting to last year’s Symposium in St. Louis. We learned about community gardening projects that helped landscape the city, feed its poor, rehabilitate criminals, and restore aging neighborhoods. The city’s famous fleur-de-lis-endowed St. Louis Planter offered a view of container gardening on a grand scale. The planter was originally designed to line Kiener Plaza, which was next to our host hotel, but it has taken a life of its own, as it is now being adopted for other installations and by other cities.
This brings me to our Symposium in 2011. This was a great Symposium. I would personally like to thank co-chairs Katy Moss Warner and Tom Underwood for their efforts with organizing this year’s Symposium. They delivered great speakers and great tours! We heard from both the White House Chief Florist Laura Dowling and from Ed Avaolos, Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs for the USDA. Joe Lamp’l, author and television personality, and author Dennis Snow offered phenomenal keynote presentations. It was indeed a great event, which afforded us the opportunity to look back, while at the same time allowed us to look forward, as we unveiled a new judging grid to go along with our new simplified list of criteria.
I hope we see many more of you at our future Symposia for even more memorable events. By the way, next year we will be in Fayetteville, Arkansas, September 20 – 22, 2012. Please be sure to mark your calendars – you won’t want to miss it!
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