Betty Baxter retired from teaching in 2008 and immediately found something to keep her busy. She joined the Faulkner County Master Gardeners.
“I needed to find something to do,” she said. “I love to garden. This is a way for me to give back to the community. Plus, it’s given me a whole new circle of friends. We are workers, but we are also socializers.”
Since 2008, Baxter, who lives with her husband, Tom, on 50 acres of her family’s original farmland in the community of Saltillo, has served as the Master Gardeners’ first vice president,
president and chairwoman of the annual plant sale committee. In recognition of her work, she has been named the 2014 Faulkner County Master Gardener of the Year.
She is currently serving as chairwoman of the plant sale committee for a second year, but “it won’t be three,” Baxter said with a laugh.
“Last year’s plant sale was named the Project of the Year,” she said. “It was a lot more involved than it had been in the past. We changed venues, moving to the Conway Expo Center. It took a lot more planning. It was more than just bringing in plants.
“It has grown over the years. We used to have about 2,000 plants, and last year, we had more than 8,000 plants.”
This year’s plant sale will be from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 9 at the Conway Expo Center and Fairgrounds, 2505 E. Oak St. in Conway. There is no admission charge.
Baxter, who is 62 — “and proud of it,” she said — said she knew she had the hours to qualify for the Master Gardener of the Year award, “but it is more involved than just volunteering your time.”
Conducted statewide by the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, the Master Gardener program involves not only volunteer hours of service but also leadership skills, educational hours, periodical meetings and more.
Supported locally by the Faulkner County Cooperative Extension Service, the Faulkner County Master Gardener program has developed a rubric for giving awards such as Master Gardener of the Year.
Baxter said she was not “totally surprised” that she won the award, “but it was not guaranteed,” she said, adding that she worked on formulating the rubric and knew what was involved in selecting the Master Gardener of the Year.
Information from the county extension office shows that Baxter logged 407 hours spread over 21 of 31 projects and committees.
“Betty is a great volunteer,” said Kami Marsh, Faulkner County extension agent for agriculture. “She is always willing to jump in and help in any way she can. If it is teaching a group of students or digging in the dirt, Betty is up for the challenge.
“The Faulkner County Extension office and Faulkner County Master Gardeners are truly blessed to have her as one of our Master Gardeners. Betty is a true asset to our program.”
Another honor has come Baxter’s way this year. She was named the 2015
Volunteer of the Year at the Arkansas Flower and Garden Show, which was held in February in Little Rock.
“It was very much a surprise,” she said. “My friend Mary Wells (also a Faulkner County Master Gardener) and my husband, Tom, insisted that we go to the show. When I heard my name called, my mouth dropped open. They kept it a secret from me.”
At this year’s statewide event, Baxter presented a children’s workshop — Worms Can Dig It. She has been involved in children’s hands-on activities at the show for the past three years.
Baxter said Tom is her “go-to guy” for helping with Master Gardener projects. He has built numerous shelves, stands and signs for the annual plant sale.
With a laugh, Tom described himself as a member of the “Master Gardeners’ auxiliary.”
Born and raised in the Saltillo community, Baxter is the daughter of the late J.L. and Ethel Daves.
“They farmed 220 acres here in this community,” she said. “Dad raised cattle and was a bus mechanic for 18 years for Vilonia schools. Mom was a homemaker and later worked at the Conway Human Development Center, where she retired in 1981. She was also a seamstress for Conway Regional Medical Center, making sheets and hospital gowns, and the laundress at the St. Joseph Rectory. She was 93 when she passed away (in 2013). Dad died of a heart attack when he was 60.”
Baxter has five older siblings — Jarrell Daves, 74, of Conway; Dorothy Hall, 70, of Conway; Harold Daves, 67, of Vilonia; Martha Bryant, 66, of Olive Branch, Mississippi; and Jim Daves, 64, of Conway.
The Baxters, who have been married 40 years, have two adult children.
Their son, Jason, 37, and his wife, Carly, live in San Diego, California, where he is the information technology-team lead at Sempra Energy. The Baxters’ daughter, Kate Gazenko, 35, and her husband, Andrey, live in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she is a general surgeon at The Christ Hospital.
Betty Baxter graduated from Vilonia High School in 1970. She graduated from the University of Central Arkansas in 1974 with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and in 1978 with a master’s degree in reading education. She has completed 36 hours of graduate work.
She is certified to teach middle-school science and social studies, and kindergarten through 12th-grade reading.
In addition to teaching 22 years in the Vilonia School District, Baxter has also taught in Osceola, DeValls Bluff and Bigelow.
The Baxters married in 1974. Betty met Tom during her last year in college when he was stationed at the Little Rock Air Force Base.
Tom was born in Paragould but moved to Conway when he was a sophomore in high school; he is a graduate of St. Joseph Catholic High School in Conway.
In 1978, the Baxters moved to Montana, where Tom was stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls. He also attended Montana State University in Bozeman.
After living seven years in Montana, the Baxters moved back to Vilonia in 1985 and rented a house. They later moved a mobile home onto the family homeplace and lived in it for three years while they built the house in which they now live.
“We were the general contractors for building our house,” Betty said. “We’re still not finished with it.”
After returning to Arkansas, Tom worked for six years at the Ace Hardware warehouse in Maumelle while serving in the Air National Guard at the Little Rock Air Force Base as a “traditional guardsman,” he said, attending weekend drills and two weeks of summer training. Then he went full time as an active guardsman/reservist and retired as a chief master sergeant in 2004.
The Baxters are members of Salem United Methodist Church in Conway.
Betty donates her blackberry jelly, which she said has become “well known” to church bazaars and other events that support mission projects, the church’s food pantry and disaster-relief efforts.
She is also is a member of Church Women United.
The Baxters hope to travel more after Betty finishes her work as plant-sale chairwoman for the Master Gardeners. The couple have a travel trailer and hope to travel to the East Coast first, particularly Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina.
“Last year, we went to Florida and, the year before that, to Yellowstone National Park and Montana,” Betty said. “It was a nostalgic trip, going back to Montana and seeing where we used to live.
“Fall is the time we usually take our trips.”
In January, the Baxters were part of an Arkansas United Methodist Church mission trip to Havana, Cuba.
“It was a fantastic experience,” Betty said, noting that Tom had signed up for the trip in February 2014. “It was a construction mission trip. We worked on houses for seminary professors.”