JARS v45n3 - Piedmont Chapter Honors Don Kellam

Piedmont Chapter Honors Don Kellam
Marshall Stilwell
Thomasville, North Carolina

On May 19, 1991, the Piedmont Chapter honored their fellow member, Don Kellam, a 1991 recipient of the ARS Gold Medal, at a meeting on the campus of North Carolina in Charlotte.

District Director Mary Beasley, who had received the Gold Medal on his behalf at the ARS Convention in Oakland, California, had personally delivered the Medal to the Charlotte meeting. Past ARS President Austin Kennell made the presentation.

Mr. Kellam is a charter member of the Piedmont Chapter and has served in Chapter offices from president to plant auctioneer, receiving the Bronze Medal in 1988. He has also served as District Director, national committee member, lecturer, plant explorer and flower show judge. Presently he is serving as co-chairman of a study group (the Sandwich Club) which evaluates and names the most outstanding unnamed Cowles and Consolini hybrids growing on Cape Cod. An avid collector of rhododendrons, he has amassed one of the finest collections in the Southeast and has always been willing to share plants and cuttings.

Mr. Kellam also received a certificate from the Royal Horticultural Society for the Cowles hybrid named 'Don Kellam" - a plant long admired by him which was registered by Richard H. Gustafson of Lawrenceville, New Jersey.

Also honored at the meeting was long-time Chapter member Tracy Lounsbury. The Van Landingham Glen, a rhododendron garden on the campus, will be planted and maintained by Chapter members to honor Don Kellam and Tracy Lounsbury.