Duets in Bloom - A Big Thank You

“Duets in Bloom’ was a fun success thanks to so many garden club members who worked hard to make it so!

Thanks to all the designers who created floral designs interpreting the art works:

• Tracy Fortuny, Ronna Precure, Ronna Smith, Burnie Ott, Sue Mank, Lynn Altheimer, and Phyllis Stair of the Garden Club of Rogers

• Mary O’Brien, Barb Templin, Charlotte Brunje, Marsha Jertson, Karen Welch, Becca Mutz, Marion Heath, Jo Staats, and Beth Kastl of the Bella Vista Garden Club.

• Char Brunje, Mary Doyle, Deloris Jennings, Geri Hoerner, Barb Templin, Linda Neymeyer of Floralia Arrangers Guild Garden Club.

• Janet Bleakman, Deborah Reynolds, Juanita Fryer, Becky McCoy, Leah Whitehead, and Corrin Troutman of the Bentonville Garden Club.

Also a most special thank you our very beloved friend, Joan Clifford, who passed away on June 20th, 2015. She was a member of the Bentonville and Floralia Garden Clubs and an NGC Flower Show Judge. We will greatly miss her warmth, her friendship and her talents.

A very special thank you to Tami Bever, Bentonville Garden Club, for providing many areas of lovely signage, as well as arranging for the cocktail tables and decor for the wine serving table. Thanks also to the members of that club that served wine: Melody Martens, Judy Geigle, Celia Boon and June Carter.

Many thanks to Becky Christenson, Garden Clubs of Rogers and Floralia, for her tireless work in locating the exhibit room, as well as arranging for the artists whose art works were featured in the show.

Thanks to the talented artists whose works provided the inspiration for the Floral Designs: Becky Christenson, Millie Bradford Aaron, Leslie Newman, Julie Hayes, Steve Horan, Ed Pennebaker, and Ben Edwards.

Thanks also to Debbie Main, of the Garden Club of Rogers, for her help printing flyers and invitations, as well as other signage for the exhibit. Thanks to Tracy Fortuny and Sue Mank of that club for centerpieces, as well as Geri Hoerner of the Bella Vista Garden Club.

The Bella Vista Garden Club provided beautiful and healthy appetizers, carefully planned and created by Debbie Edmunds, Beth Kastl, Karen Welch, Barb Templin, Jan Grim, Becky Fox, Judi Shannon, Julia Blair, and Betty Honn. The Bella Vista Garden Club also provided friendly appetizer servers Cathy Downard, JB Portillo, Becky Fox, Vera Martin, Betty Honn, and Meredith Janes, and Tony and Joyce Licausi cheerfully handed out wine tickets.

Our hostesses came from each of our four garden clubs and did a great job greeting visitors and explaining the exhibit: Janet Bleakman, Debbie Reynolds, Burnie Ott, Mary Doyle, Barb Templin, Becca Mutz, Sue Mank, Phyllis Stair, Ronna Precure, Ronna Smith, Tami Bever and her mom, Mary O’Brian, Marion Heath, Jerilyn Frentriss, and Dorothy Sandoval.

Our sincere thanks to current president,Terry Dushan and past president, Elizabeth Christie, of the ‘Artists of Northwest Arkansas’, who came from Fayetteville to judge the exhibit.

Thanks also to Arvest Bank for the use of their Conference Center and their assistance in presenting this event, and to ‘Guess Who’ for their generous donation of wine through the Bentonville Garden Club.

Thanks to Alex Grazinai at Riordan Hall in Bella Vista for help in obtaining table covers and aprons and to Kim Nelson, Garden Club of Rogers and Virginia Halman, Bella Vista Garden Club, for pressing them.

Thanks also to Burnie Ott for the fruited water and serving dispensers, and to Mary Doyle, Debbie Main and Becky Christenson for supplying easels.

A big thanks to Cathy Wayson for creating a slide show of the exhibit on the Bella Vista Garden Club website: www.bellavistagardenclub.com and for her many hours of care in formatting information about the exhibit, including this letter.

Thanks also to Fran Zimmerman for publicity she sent to The Weekly Vista.

A successful event requires hard work and dedication, as well as creativity - my sincere thanks to you all for contributing those qualities and your talents to ‘Duets in Bloom’ and for the beautiful exhibit that resulted!

Four clubs, seven artists, one big success!

Linda Neymeyer, ‘Duets in Bloom’ Coordinator