Taryn Moore, a graduate of Bentonville West High School, will be attending Brigham Young University in Rexburg, Idaho as a Horticulture and Landscape Design major . At Bentonville West, Taryn participated in FFA, Tap Dancing Club, Honor Society, Church Youth Group, and Lower Light Theatre. She was an AP Scholar, received the High Honors Pathway Achievement Award and OSHA 10 Hour Certification, and she worked for Matkins Flowers and Greenhouse.

From Taryn’s beginning school years, she developed a passion for plants. As an elementary student, she used her home sunroom to grow plants and she would sell the seedlings to teachers and others. In junior high, a friend gave her a houseplant, which she learned to propagate and expanded to other plants, which she would sell online. By tenth grade, Taryn joined FFA and took Environmental Science, where she learned soil composition, ecosystems, and plant sustainability. She became a leader and a competitor in Floriculture. Then in eleventh grade, she started working for Matkins Flowers and Greenhouse. There she discovered that she could create art with living things. All those years of growing and loving plants became her college major. When Taryn has received her college degree, she wants to share the beauty and benefits of plants and help make horticulture more accessible to people of all ages, cultures, and backgrounds in her own flower shop or landscaping business.

Sullivan Schaffer, a graduate of Gravette High School, will be attending Oklahoma State University at Stillwater as a Natural Resource Ecology and Management major. At GHS she participated agriculture, 4-H, Leadership, Mentoring, and offices of various organizations. Sullie was Farm Bureau Agriculture Student of the Year, a National 4-H Conference Delegate, AR 4-H Record Book Winner, Benton County 4-H Achievement Winner, GHS Leadership Team, 4-H County President, Freshman Mentor, Benton County Camp Counselor and FFA Secretary and Parliamentarian.

Sulli has grown up surrounded by agriculture (she lives on a farm), and she believes agriculture and conservation can co-exist. Before her senior year, she was able to attend a Youth Summit at George Mason University in Washington, D. C. There she was inspired by the connection of what she knows and cares about in agriculture with what she can do in the natural environment to establish a better rate of survival for plants and people/animals. She was able to meet with her congressmen and now hopes to work as an intern in Washington, D.C. during her time at OSU. Her purpose will be to link plant science to animal science; she believes we must focus on both to create a sustainable future for Arkansas and our country. During her senior year spring break, she traveled to Germany and France to learn about different methods of growing crops. After graduation from college, she plans to use her degree with a job at the Game and Fish Commission to preserve natural resources while working with the agricultural community.

Taylor Manning, a graduate of Rogers Heritage High School, will be attending the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville as a Landscape Architecture major. At Heritage she participated as captain of Varsity Girl’s Soccer, the Competitive Rock Climbing Team, Environmental Club, Friends of the Earth, Technology Student Association, Writing Center Tutor, and as a Heritage Ambassador. Some of her awards included AP Scholar, LEADS Award for founding the Writing Center, A honor Roll, Community Service Award (over 200 hours), and Arkansas Governor’s School.

Taylor plans to work directly with communities of diverse backgrounds—urban cities to underrepresented areas—connecting them to nature through design and helping to improve their overall quality of life. Her number one goal is that her designs will improve sustainability for public places and for personal homes. While at the U of A, she hopes to get an internship at a local Landscape Architecture firm such as Ecological Design Group in Rogers, which emphasizes “Building Green.” She plans to graduate and immediately begin working in the community she grew up in, Rogers. As she is working as a landscape architect Taylor wants to do her own research and assist in developing more ways to design “Building Green.” This research will lead Taylor to pursue another degree as she adds to her knowledge of sustainable design in the context of “Building Green.”