EDMOND—Herbert W. Armstrong College was recognized for its architecture and landscaping on November 30 at the 25th annual Environmental Excellence Celebration, hosted by Keep Oklahoma Beautiful at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. The college was a finalist for the Collegiate Effort Award.
Keep Oklahoma Beautiful, a state affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, nominated the college for the award. Founded in 1965, the nonprofit organization assists and recognizes grassroots efforts of Oklahomans involved with community and environmental improvement. Executive director Jeanette Nance visited the Armstrong College campus in the summer. The grounds include 170 acres, 25 buildings, 16 wells, 20-plus acres under irrigation, five water features, two scenic walking paths, two small ponds, and numerous landscaping displays, including four cedars of Lebanon in front of the John Amos Field House.
Armstrong International Cultural Foundation marketing director Shane Granger, building and grounds superintendent Wayne Turgeon, facilities manager Roger Brandon, landscaping supervisor Carl Hilliker, landscaping designer Roland Young, and their guests attended the banquet, among hundreds of others representing organizations across the state.
Jennifer Reynolds and Dino Lalli, cohosts of the weekly travel program Discover Oklahoma, introduced the candidates for each award category. Nance presented the Armstrong representatives with a plaque awarding Armstrong College as the runner-up in the “Collegiate Effort” category.
As photographs of Armstrong College, the University of Central Oklahoma, the Spring Creek Coalition, Marathon Oil, and other finalists appeared on a large projector screen, Reynolds and Lalli described how each organization had cleaned up the environment or contributed to its natural beauty. As a shot of the Armstrong College campus taken from just outside its front entrance showed onscreen, Lalli told the audience about the student-work program that allows student landscapers to pay off their education by the time they graduate, and the “Seals of Jeremiah’s Captors Discovered”archaeological exhibit that ran from January 2012 to December 1 at Armstrong Auditorium.
“It is nice to have all of the hard work and effort that has been expended—by so many, for so long—by keeping the grounds looking good recognized by entities outside of our own organization,” Mr. Brandon said.
Mr. Turgeon pointed out after the ceremony that the Ambassador College campus in Pasadena, California, thrice won the Professional Grounds Management Society award as the best-landscaped and best-maintained campus in America before its closure in 1990. Armstrong College is patterned after the work of Herbert W. Armstrong, who founded Ambassador. Mr. Turgeon said it was special to receive similar recognition, albeit on a smaller scale, for Armstrong College.
Most of the Keep Oklahoma Beautiful award winners had undertaken projects like picking up trash, cleaning streams, or growing produce. The University of Central Oklahoma won the Collegiate Effort Award for building 30 tiny pools on top of its campus buildings and producing vegetables for the local community.
Nevertheless, Mr. Turgeon called the second-place finish a success. “It gets our name out there,” he said. “It’s the relentless exposure in different mediums that will put us more in the spotlight as time goes on.”