While Jill Bailey has graciously accepted the State Master Gardener Rookie of the Year award for programs with 50 members or less, she is adamant to point out: “I did not do one thing by myself.
“Every project I’ve worked on has been with someone else,” she told visitors recently as they toured the gardens at Ed Leamon Park in Fairfield Bay, where she often volunteers. “There is no ‘I’ in teamwork.”
Bailey’s award was announced during the State Master Gardener Conference on May 31 through June 2 at the Fort Smith Convention Center. However, Bailey was out of town and not able to accept the award in person.
The Arkansas Master Gardeners program is supported by the Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture. Bailey’s nomination for the state award came from members of the Van Buren County Master Gardeners program, which is based in the Van Buren County Cooperative Extension Service office in Clinton.
“This community is a community of volunteers,” Bailey said about Fairfield Bay. “The community of Master Gardeners is such a supportive community. This organization is what ‘team’ is all about … the support that everyone gives each other.”
Bailey joined the Van Buren County Master Gardeners in 2016 and quickly went to work. She recorded 161 volunteer hours in 2017 and served as co-chairwoman of the group’s annual plant sale, which is held in conjunction with Bloomin’ in the Bay activities at Fairfield Bay. She was also part of a two-year rookie project that resulted in a new children’s garden at Leamon Park.
Longtime Master Gardener Barbara Foster of Fairfield Bay submitted Bailey’s nomination for the state award.
“Jill Bailey has been an inspiring member of the Van Buren County Master Gardeners and contributed many volunteer hours to the Fairfield Bay community,” Foster said. “Whenever help is needed, she is eager to participate. … Her special areas of interest are native plants and pollinators. Throughout the year, she has maintained her overwhelming energetic enthusiasm. She has an innate desire to excel and execute perfection.”
Bailey said the Van Buren Master Gardeners “had two rookie classes that came together to do the rookie project.”
“There were 11 of us that built a new spot at Leamon Park for the children,” she said. “It features an eagle’s nest, a colorful hanging ribbon tent and a tic-tac-toe game carved into a large tree stump. The eagle’s nest is a woven structure of branches and vines.
“Like a real eagle’s nest, it’s never finished.”
Bailey said rookie team members from 2016 include her, along with Jim Morris, Edie Callaway and Linda Lewis, all of Fairfield Bay, and April Keeling of Clinton. Bailey said members of the 2017 team include Tina Johnson, Morgan Antie and Sara Donnell, all of Clinton, and Xing Chen, Judy Walthall and Joan Reagan, all of Fairfield Bay.
“It was a team effort,” Bailey said.
In conjunction with the Fairfield Bay Community Club, Bailey consulted with a state naturalist from the Arkansas Forestry Commission to redesign the landscape area around the main entrance to Fairfield Bay. That project is ongoing.
In her role as a member of the Fairfield Bay Community Foundation, Bailey helped receive funds to put a new floor in the cabin in Leamon Park that the Master Gardeners use to store materials and equipment.
And in conjunction with the Fairfield Bay Garden Club, Bailey arranged for a naturalist to offer an eagle-watch tour.
Bailey is also a member of the Fairfield Bay Historic Preservation Committee, which recently helped sponsor a free concert by the Cherokee Nation Youth Choir in the Indian Rock Cave in Fairfield Bay.
“Her success comes from rapidly becoming everyone’s best friend,” Foster said in her nomination of Bailey for the state Master Gardeners award. “She generates an extremely positive picture of Master Gardeners.”
Bailey said she learned about the Master Gardeners not long after she moved to Fairfield Bay.
“Before I even became a Master Gardener, I attended the plant sale. I knew it was where I could buy plants that would survive in this environment. I knew the Master Gardeners grew the plants and did not ship them in from somewhere else,” she said.
“So when I joined, I got busy. I don’t mind getting down and dirty,” Bailey said.
“I may not know the answer, but I know who to ask,” she said. “That’s what I have done all my life.
“I haven’t done much by myself. … Every project I’ve worked on has been with someone else.”
Bailey, 71, grew up in Marion, Iowa, a daughter of the late Margaret and Delmar Hilton, who moved to Fairfield Bay in the 1970s. Bailey graduated from Mankato State University in Minnesota with an undergraduate degree in elementary education and physical education. She received her master’s degree in early-childhood education from the University of Missouri at St. Louis.
She and her husband, Don Bailey, moved to Fairfield Bay in 2011 from the St. Louis area, where she worked for an early-childhood organization, Parents As Teachers. She continues to work for this organization at least one week a month.
Jill Bailey said she became familiar with Fairfield Bay when she was a young girl.
“My parents visited Fairfield Bay in 1966 and moved here in 1972,” she said.
“Now my grandchildren have the same opportunity to enjoy this wonderful place as I did,” she said. “It’s an awesome place to live.”
Bailey’s husband is retired from the car business and was an inspector for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He serves on the Fairfield Bay City Council.
The Baileys have a daughter, Meg Lucero, who lives with her husband, Marcos, in Denver, Colorado, with their three children: Charlie, 14, Sofia, 12, and Jacob, 8. The Baileys’ son, Andy Bailey, also lives in Denver with his wife, Kate, and their children, Elyse, 11, and Lyla, 9.
“The whole family celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary in Fiji,” Jill said. “It was the trip of a lifetime.
“That’s where I was when the Master Gardeners state convention was held, so I could not attend and accept the award in person.”
The Van Buren County Master Gardeners meet once a month. They support several projects in Fairfield Bay, including Leamon Park and the gardens at the Senior Center; and projects in Clinton, including the landscape beds at the Van Buren County Courthouse and Annex and at the Van Buren County Public Library. They also work at the Van Buren County Fair, where they maintain a public-education booth.
For more information on the Van Buren County Master Gardeners program, call the County Extension Office at (501) 745-7117. Danny Griffith is the staff chairman and agriculture agent, as well as the adviser for the Master Gardeners program.