PRESIDENTIAL GARDENS

 I would like to say thank you to four very special people who are no longer with us but the effects that they have had on my life continues to live on and inspire me still today.

    GARLAND WILLIAMS

Mr. Garland Williams, my Conway High School Agriculture teacher, Greenhouse instructor and Future Farmers of America Adviser.  Mr. Williams was a special man that cared for his students and went the extra mile for them often. As a teenager I was starting to stray off course and just in time came along Mr. Williams.  He was the type of teacher that came to school early and often stayed late helping his students and FFA Members with their projects. He was the man that took me to the state FFA Convention at Camp Couchdale near Hot Springs Arkansas and I was spell bound with all those blue and gold FFA jackets.  I told him I had found what I wanted to do and that was to be a leader and the rest is about three years of Arkansas FFA history.  Mr. Williams remained a close friend of our family for several years after I got out of school until his death.

  ROSE BELK

My Grandma, Rose Belk who raised me helped instill a love for gardens, plants and especially flowers at a very early age.  I still remember helping in her big garden as a young child.  By the age of ten I was already planting my own garden next to hers and also with my father in his garden.  I can still remember running the tiller and using a hole.  We picked strawberries and blackberries out of the same patch that I still have today.  I still remember her and her mother raising flowers all over the yard and the tremendous pleasure that they got from it.  Some have ask if I had a green thumb.  I usually reply that I don’t have a green thumb.  I have a green hand.  I just love growing plants and flowers that much.  Nannie Belk’s love for flowers sure rubbed off on me.

   SHERYL LYNN COLLINS

My late wife, Sheryl Lynn Collins, who to her dying day encouraged me to pursue my love and interest in plants, flowers and greenhouses.  She wanted me to move forward with this business even though I am convinced now that she realized that she would not be here to enjoy it with me.  She was just that kind of woman that always had everybody’s else best interest in mind.  She loved flowers but killed nearly everyone she touched.  We got a long real well in this area because I kept her in flowers most all the time the last several years of her life.  She loved it and got a great pleasure out of the flowers and plants even though she could not grow them.  She especially loved the blueberry bushes that I planted for her in the front yard because she loved blueberries.  I had raised flowers for many years and given them away.  My plant hobby grown to the place that that she and others encouraged me to take it to the next level and turn it into a small business.  Shortly after she passed away that is what I did.  I will always be thankful for the life she lived and the encouragement that she gave to inspire me to step out and pursue one of the main things that I really enjoy in life. It's really because of her encouragement early on that Presidential Gardens exist today.