January 26, 2009
Bowling
Green, Ky. - A new professorship at Western Kentucky University will honor the career of Mitchell Leichhardt, a lifelong landscape architect, horticulturist and businessman, whose dedication to the business has spanned nearly seven decades.
According to Tom Hiles, WKU’s vice president for Institutional Advancement, the $1 million Leichhardt Endowed Professorship in Horticulture will be established through a $500,000 private gift, which will be matched, dollar-for-dollar by the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s Regional University Excellence Trust Fund.
Leichhardt began his career at the age of 16, when he got a part-time job at Deemer Floral Company, which was close to his home. “At that time, the operation had a large number of greenhouses and produced most of its flowers on site, including their propagation,” he said. “From this opportunity I was exposed at an early age to a wide variety of plant experiences, from the start of cuttings through their life cycle and final harvesting.”
After his service in World War II, Leichhardt re-entered WKU and, shortly thereafter, he and his friend, Sonny Barr, decided there was an opportunity in Bowling Green for a landscape business. Leichhardt then took advantage of all of the courses WKU offered in horticulture and agriculture. Several years later, Barr sold his business interest to J. Lewie Harman, who became a silent partner with Leichhardt.
“We acquired more land and started producing a wide variety of nursery stock in several locations, finally locating on a hundred acres of land a few miles southwest of Bowling Green, where we grew stock primarily for the local and Louisville market for more than 30 years,” Leichhardt said.
Leichhardt has served as president and board member for the Kentucky Nurserymen’s Association (now the Kentucky Nursery and Landscape Association) and was a registered landscape architect with the Kentucky Landscape Architects. He has worked on projects with a number of landscape architects, including Robert Sturdevant, Tom Nelson, Mary Louise Speed and Ben Page. He has also worked with a number of prestigious clients, including Sen. John Sherman Cooper. He currently serves as proprietor of Landscape Nursery Supply LLC, a small business that supplies quality landscape material to landscapers, contractors, and retail walk-in traffic. He received his bachelor’s degree from WKU in 1970.
Leichhardt has seen many changes to the business over the years. “Due to climate change, the selection of plant material is much wider, as we are now able to grow many plants that were once considered not hardy enough for this region,” he said. “These include crape myrtles and many varieties of broad-leaved evergreen. Transportation has also improved greatly, through interstates and trucking facilities, with regular deliveries of material now available from Florida, the South, and the Pacific Northwest.”
He said propagation of plants has improved through tissue culture and rooting hormones, “which allow us to have exotic material at reasonable costs. Tillage, cultivation and planting have also progressed from the mule and plow to machinery, such as tillers and large mechanical tree movers. Finally, production has largely progressed from the field to containers that enable us to plant over a much longer period of the year.”
Leichhardt hopes that this professorship will support and encourage future generations of horticulturists. “It is my hope that WKU will be able to attract and keep talented instructors who will inspire, equip, and attract students interested in horticulture, so that this vocation, which has given me so much fulfillment, will continue to thrive and flourish for future generations,” he said.
Hiles said the professorship will have an enormous impact on the program. “We think it is particularly fitting that a professorship has been established in horticulture to honor a man who has had such a distinguished career in that area,” he said. “Mitchell has worked in the community and at WKU to make our landscape and environment more beautiful.”
Dr. Blaine Ferrell, dean of WKU’s Ogden College of Science and Engineering, said that horticulture is a growth area in the Department of Agriculture. “The Leichhardt Professorship in Horticulture has allowed us to retain an excellent horticulturist, Martin Stone, who is educating the next generation of horticulturists and engaging our students in excellent research,” he said. “This professorship is a very fitting tribute to Mitchell Leichardt, who is himself an innovative horticulturist. The Ogden College of Science and Engineering is very appreciative of this gift. It sends a message of strong outside support for what we are doing and provides us with resources necessary for providing a unique and excellent education for our students.”
Dr. Martin Stone, who is the director of WKU’s Horticulture Program, will serve as the first Leichhardt Professor. “Mitchell Leichhardt is regionally and nationally recognized as one of the leaders in the horticulture industry,” he said. “We are fortunate to have had him reside and practice his profession in our area as a nurseryman and a landscape architect. This endowment is not only fitting, but deserving for his contribution to the profession. It is an honor to be the first holder of such a distinguished position named for such a distinguished man.
“The Leichhardt Professorship in Horticulture will bring prestige, recognition, and greatly needed resources to our growing Horticulture Program in the Department of Agriculture,” Dr. Stone continued. “It will allow WKU’s program in landscape horticulture to prepare students as landscape professionals, which will improve both their status and visibility in the industry.”
Dr. Stone said the endowed professorship could not have come at a more opportune moment, as the field of public horticulture has become the newest and hottest field in horticulture. “With its connection to the nearby Baker Arboretum, our undergraduate and graduate students will be poised to assume leadership roles in public gardens, arboreta, and in the landscape industry,” he said.
The Leichhardt Endowed Professor will be the vital and visible link between the activities of the Baker Arboretum and the activities in horticulture on campus, Dr. Stone said. When the garden becomes public, the Leichhardt Professor will be its director, creating a synergism between the two that will be unique to the state and region.
“The Leichhardt Endowed Professor will have a nationally recognized, highly visible profile in both landscape and public horticulture, which will be equal or greater than any other such position in the region,” Dr. Stone said. “The ultimate benefit will be to the graduates of the program who will be linked to it throughout their professional lives. The Ogden College of Science and Technology as a whole and the Department of Agriculture in particular will benefit from the endowment, as it raises the level of teaching and research within them.
Success begets success, and I expect great things to come from such a generous endowment. Beyond the University’s borders in the greater Bowling Green community, its impact will be felt. First, with the accessibility of the Baker Arboretum as a learning center for horticulture and the environment and, secondly, as the graduates of the program begin to create a center of gravity for horticulture around this area.”
More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu and at http://wkunews.wordpress.com/.
For more information, contact Tom Hiles, (270) 745-6208.
-WKU-
"A leading American university with international reach"
Office of Media Relations
Western Kentucky University
1906 College Heights Blvd., Bowling Green, Ky. 42101-3576
Phone: (270)745-4295 - Fax: (270)7455387 - E-Mail: western@wku.edu