Bob Taylor earned the Washington Master Gardener of the Year award for his volunteer efforts.
Master Gardener Bob Taylor speaks to a third grade class at the Toledo Elementary school about composting. Taylor was named the Washington Master Gardener of the Year award for his volunteer efforts.
When Bob Taylor retired to Lewis County in 2000, he was looking for a way to get involved in his new community. Coming from Texas, he was also curious about all the different regional plants growing up around his house. So he joined the Master Gardener Program.
Eighteen years later, Taylor is now the Washington Master Gardener of the year. He’s the first Lewis County resident to win the award, selected from the more than 4,000 volunteers involved in the program throughout the state.
“Plain and simple, it felt very good,” said Taylor, who hails from Littell, a community just east of Adna. “The people that you see and volunteer with all the time, they know what you contribute. It’s nice to be recognized by people you may not know.”
How Taylor earned the award is no secret. In his 18 years as a volunteer, he’s turned in more than 18,000 hours of service time.
“That’s a lot of hours,” said Jennifer Marquis, the Master Gardener program’s interim state coordinator. “I don’t think there’s anybody else in the entire program who’s given that many hours.”
Don Enstrom joined the Master Gardener Program six years ago, where he was assigned Taylor as a mentor. After working alongside him on many projects over the years, he decided to nominate his friend for the award.
“He treats it like a job,” Enstrom said. “Nobody in the state does the hours he does. … He is very dedicated to what he does.”
It’s easy to put in so many hours, Taylor said, when he loves the work. Master Gardeners are part of a Washington State University Extension program that requires extensive training, allowing them to become community educators about horticulture and environmental stewardship.
“I met a fantastic group of people,” Taylor said. “It’s an eclectic group of all different backgrounds. It really helped to hasten good friendships.”
Taylor has been involved in growing classes and plant sales, woodworking and coordinating the group’s Providence Place Demonstration Garden in Chehalis. Perhaps his favorite project, though, has been helping educate kids at Toledo Elementary School, an endeavor he’s been doing for the last eight years.
“That’s been an extremely rewarding experience,” he said.
Enstrom’s award submission on behalf of Taylor emphasizes the program’s success.
“Bob has built a nine-month, award-winning program that delivers a 14-topic garden science curriculum to Toledo School District elementary school students, including hands-on classes emphasizing soil testing, worm bin composting, seed collection/starting/transplanting, water resource protection, garden math, recycling and repurposing, nutrition, pollination, fruit and nut trees, and a Farmers Market exercise that combines budgeting, math, and nutrition,” it reads.
During that time, the school has moved from a “failing” status to earning a “distinction” designation, and school leaders have credited Taylor’s program with aiding that progress.
“A lot of kids grow up now thinking food comes from a grocery store,” Toledo Superintendent Chris Rust told The Chronicle last year. “Our kids are growing up knowing it comes from a garden.”
Despite all the work he’s put in, Taylor said he didn’t expect to win the award.
“I was surprised,” he said. “There’s people from around the state, and all of them have done some pretty spectacular things.”
Taylor’s contributions don’t just come in quantity of hours, Enstrom said, but in quality of work. He noted that Taylor will make a slight modification to the entry hole of a birdhouse, depending on which species might call it home. That care is part of the spirit of Lewis County’s Master Gardeners. Of the 31 volunteers recognized this year for serving 500 or more hours, six hailed from this county, the most of any in the state. The local group, Enstrom said, averages double the volunteer hours of the state average.
Taylor said his involvement has come naturally, following his desire to get involved somehow nearly two decades ago.
“As you move into any community where you have no network, trying to make friends is not easy,” he said. “The nice thing about the Master Gardener program, you already have one thing in common with all the rest of the people, and that’s gardening. It just branches off from there.”
In addition to gardening, Taylor is also a regular volunteer with the Lewis County Master Recycler Composters program.
“He’s just one of those people who goes above and beyond to make sure and spread the word and help educate people,” said Lewis County Solid Waste Manager Steve Skinner.
While he’s worked on all kinds of plants and projects over the years, Taylor has a few favorites. Native trees, he said, carry a particular fascination. Perennial plants he enjoys too.
“I’m into the low maintenance,” he said. “Plant them once, little bit of care and they go well.”
