Over the last decade, a trio of local Master Gardeners have accumulated more than 5,200 volunteer hours of gardening education.
For thie efforts, the Clallam County Master Gardeners honored Betsy Burlingame, Bev Dawson and Bruce Pape with the organization’s Golden Trowel Award at a Sept. 9 Zoom meeting.
The Golden Trowel Award, initiated in 2005, is presented each year to Master Gardeners who have been active in the organization for more than five years, dedicated more than 750 hours of volunteer time and demonstrated outstanding service in promoting education and environmental stewardship.
Burlingame, Dawson and Pape have collectively offered thousands of hours working with home gardeners to help identify and offer solutions to plant problems, provide research for area weed problems and support the Master Gardener Foundation of Clallam County’s Woodcock Demonstration Garden.
Each honoree received an engraved rock paver that has been installed in a pathway at the Woodcock Demonstration Garden in Sequim, to go alongside the more than 80 previous award recipients.
About the honorees
Burlingame is a Washington State University graduate with degrees in psychology and business. She moved to Clallam County in 1997 to pursue her professional career as contracting officer/procurement specialist for Battelle Memorial Institute, a marine research laboratory in Sequim.
She has years of gardening and farming experience and became a Master Gardener in 2010. She shares her knowledge at local plant clinics and mentors new Master Gardeners. She has served as the secretary to the Master Gardener Foundation of Clallam County Board of Directors, potting shed area supervisorat the Woodcock Demonstration Garden and chair of the foundation’s annual plant sale.
Dawson is a retired credit union executive from Southern California. She moved to Clallam County in 2006 where she has transformed a 1-acre, undeveloped lot into a garden that was featured on the 2014 Petals and Pathways Home Garden Tour.
A Master Gardener since 2010, she has made substantial contributions toward the maintenance and improvements at the Woodcock Demonstration Garden, local Master Gardeners said. She chairs ticket sales for the Foundation’s Petals and Pathways Home Garden Tour. Additionally, she is the past president and current treasurer of the Port Angeles Garden Club.
Pape taught classes in environmental planning, water resources and soils as an Assistant Professor at Central Michigan University for 30 years. A Port Angeles resident since 2011, he is a 2012 graduate of the Master Gardener Training. Since that time, he has led a group of Master Gardeners in work with the Roadside Vegetation Management Team, a cooperative project with the Clallam County Noxious Weed Office and Clallam County Road Commission.
He also has presented local seminars on gardening and climate change. He manages the orchard area at the Woodcock Demonstration Garden.
The Master Gardener Program provides public education in gardening and environmental stewardship generated from research at WSU and other university systems.
For more information, call 360-565-2679.
