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Winners of Ackerman Contest Announced
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Winners for the 2020 Ackerman Contest are: |
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Place |
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9 & Under |
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1 |
Ekaterina Anshakov |
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2 |
Dietrich Brase |
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3 |
Ethan Brase |
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10 - 12 |
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1 |
Jackson Long |
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13 & Over |
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1 |
Ellie Ferren |
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2 |
Darby Redman |
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3 |
Mason Patacsil |
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Topic was: Imagine that you are the President of the American Iris Society 50 years from now, on the 150th Anniversary of AIS. How would you encourage people to join AIS and continue to support growing and sharing irises into the future? What do you think irises will look like in 2070? |
Welcome to the party! My name is Katya and my celebration is made for kids, but of course adults are invited, too. Here's what we're going to do.
First, we are going to have a scavenger hunt. You will be given the name of an iris variety that you have to find in our garden. Once you find it, you will be given another clue for a different variety to find. Once you find ten irises, you will be able to pick three of those ten irises as a prize.
Second, there will be an art area, where we will paint irises on cups and canvases. We will also make drawings of irises and frame them.
Next, there will be a garden area where we will plant irises and weed irises. The person who has the most weeds in their pile will get a prize of three of the irises that they weeded.
After doing all that work, we will need a snack. We will have iris-shaped cookies.
Then we will play Pin the Dykes Medal on the Iris. The person that gets the medal closest to the beard wins. The winner will get a Dykes Medal-winning iris.
Once we are finished with that, we will shoot iris-shaped arrows at an iris borer-shaped target. I live near a small town called Sandwich in northern Illinois, so we can shoot the arrows because I live in the country.
Finally, we will sing Happy Birthday to the American Iris Society, and we will eat a big iris-shaped cake with 100 candles on it. It will have to be REALLY big to hold all the candles, but there will be a lot of people to blow out the candles and eat it. On the side, there will be a cupcake with one candle on it, to show that this is a 100+1 birthday party for AIS.
Thank you for coming to the party! I hope you had fun!
Jackson Long Entry:
My American Iris Society Anniversary Celebration
Last year I started getting my first irises. I was 9 years old. The American Iris Society was one hundred years old. My grandparents sent me and my brother around twenty-five irises. We started going to Horton Iris Garden in Loomis, California. I like irises because they are so pretty; I like the long shape of the leaves. I like the idea of breeding them to make new irises, something that has not been invented before. I am starting an iris farm in my front yard. I have planted the irises that my grandparents sent me and the ones that we bought from Horton. This past weekend I tried to hybridize my first iris. I took the anthers from a pink Kiss the Dawn iris and put the pollen on the stigmatic lip from a purple Double Dribble iris, and then I did the reverse. I wrote down what I did so that if there will be a seed pod, I will know who the parents were.
For the anniversary of the American Iris Society, I will plan a celebration at my farm. At the celebration there will be lots of blooming irises. I hope to open Saturday and Sunday April 1st to May 5th. I will put up posters to let people know about it and I will sell potted iris rhizomes. People will pick dark purple iris flowers and put them in boiling water to make a dye for clothing like a T-shirt. There will also be a science table where people will learn about the parts of the iris flowers so they can read a description and know the parts and know how to hybridize. I will have an ice truck to come and serve different kinds of shaved ice with all the colors of the irises.
I will do Facebook videos where I say: “Here is My Friend Jonathan, it is a reddish color. Here is Mango Passion, a beautiful orange one. Here is Bellarosella, a very popular one with purple falls and lavender standards.” I was in a Facebook live video at Horton Iris Garden last weekend. I did a tour around a row of irises, describing them and naming them. I will make a catalog and will put the parents of my irises so people will know these irises have already been bred together.
Probably my iris farm won’t be open until 2025, but I need to start planning. I will make a map that will show the location of the irises in my farm. I will also make a map of the irises in my town. Irises are beautiful and people like to look at them. I want people to know that even though some irises may look similar they are different if you look closely at them. My celebration will help them to know how the beautiful colors of iris are made. Hooray for the one hundredth Anniversary!
Ellie Ferren Entry
No Title
The American Iris Society was founded January 29th, 1920. The purpose of the AIS is to promote and share information about irises. The founders of the American Iris Society were John Casper Wister (first president), James Boyd, A. C. Beal, Grace Sturtevant and Robert Sturtevant (first secretary). The goals of the AIS are to research pests and diseases, to collect cultural information, and to promote popular interests in irises. With these goals in mind, let’s celebrate the 101st anniversary of the American Iris Society with a party!
The party would be located at an iris farm with tours and irises of all colors; the iris is the flower of the rainbow after all! (The location wasn’t too hard to decide after visiting a beautiful local iris farm.) A large tent would be set up in the middle of the farm. The back of the tent would be filled with tables and folding chairs. Each table would be adorned with dwarf irises in vases with decorated iris cookies and lemonade for refreshments. Van Gogh iris prints would be displayed throughout. The front half of the tent would be full of vendors selling anything from tall bearded rhizomes to t-shirts to tools. To attract a crowd of all ages, there would be games such as: Pin the Iris on the Stalk, Rhizome Bean Bag Toss, Rot vs. Rhizome Tug-of-War, and Squish the Slug (like Whack-A-Mole). These games would not only be fun, but would teach about iris enemies! There would also be hands-on workshops including “How to Hybridize”, “Identifying Iris Types”, and “Preparing Irises for Judging”. A special workshop, “Iris Planting for Beginners” could be held in a local park to benefit the whole community and further spark interest in irises. Next would be the competitions. Of course, there would be an iris show that anyone can enter, but also an iris photography competition, a “Design Your Own Iris” coloring competition for kids, and other art competitions such as sculptures and paintings. These competitions serve to promote the beauty of irises in everyday life, not just when they are blooming. Afterwards would be speakers to further educate others. Talks may include the evolution of irises, the history of AIS, and irises around the world.
To end the celebration, an iris pageant would be held. Iris Society members would dress up as the founders of the AIS and show some of the earliest hybridized irises. Imagine John C. Wister in a fedora hat and tweed suit showing an heirloom iris! Robert Sturtevant could announce competition winners and award the prizes (an iris rhizome). The big finale would be the release of a special newly hybridized iris called “Centennial Plus” in honor of the American Iris Society’s 100+1 anniversary celebration.
This party would successfully promote iris interest, while educating others on their proper care. It would not only be fun but would encourage younger generations to love irises while empowering everyone with knowledge and confidence to grow their own! Happy Anniversary, AIS!
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