Campus horticulturist wins award for contributions
Lucinda Mays, CSC campus horticulturist, received the Jim Kluck Honor Award from the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum March 4.
Although she was unable to attend the ceremony in Lincoln, Mays was recognized for her significant contributions to the Chadron affiliate of NSA. A member of NSA nominated her for the award last fall.
Other awards Mays has won include the Nebraska Forest Service Educator Award. She received this honor after a project where she, along with 500 volunteers, planted 12,000 pine trees by C-Hill after a 2006 wildfire destroyed the area’s vegetation.
Mays earned her master’s degree from CSC in May 2005, and has been working for the school ever since. Prior to that, she worked at Calloway Gardens in Georgia and did the southern segments on the PBS gardening show, “The Victory Garden.”
Mays said her job is to design garden spaces, select plants, get them established, and fix any problems they may have.
She said she has a great team that does all the “behind-the-scenes” and “unglamorous” work.
Mays noted that Blair Brennan, CSC physical facilities project coordinator, is a big help to her work.
“What’s so important about what he does is that he gives me advance notice of where campus projects are going on,” Mays said. “It allows me to avoid or work around them until they are done.”
Starting July 2015, Mays and the grounds crew have been working on a pollinator-friendly living fence by Eagle Ridge.
The CSC Wildlife Club took out the barbed wire fence that was there, and Mays is building a plant wall to attract butterflies and other pollinators. She said the area can be used as a teaching garden, while also providing a habitat.
Another project she has coming up is reconstructing the flora by the Rangeland Complex.
“All that land was disturbed with construction, so we’re coming back and sewing in all the native grasses that should be there,” Mays said.
Mays will be recognized again for her award during Wildflower Week, June 2-4.
This is the western Nebraska NSA affiliate’s celebration, in which volunteers will be planting wild flowers by CSC’s Rangeland Lab.