Snohomish High School horticulture class students, from left to right sophomore Corina Ramirez, junior Madison Porter, and sophomore Karsyn Whitaker work to place fresh blooming flowers into the 2024 planting display in front of the high school on Wednesday, April 17. The students removed earlier placed hyacinths which had finished blooming
with geraniums.
Doug Ramsay
SNOHOMISH — A handful of horticulture students dug in last week to reset Snohomish High’s flowerbed that celebrates the school’s next graduating class.
Ernie Goshorn brought the geraniums in the back of his Ford Ranger that he grew in his little greenhouse.
Students from ag science teacher Tracy Brown’s class joined him to conduct the morning plantings on the school’s side lawn facing Avenue D.
The bed rotates seasonally. It takes about 28 plants to arrange the numbers. In the fall was cabbage kale. In early spring they use bulb-based flowers. For later spring, they’re switched to all geraniums.
Goshorn, now 81, wouldn’t miss it for the world, for the Class of ‘61 alumnus is fundamentally how the flowerbed came to be.
“It all started as a humbug,” Goshorn said.
The school celebrated the 1960 Panthers basketball team’s stellar year by buying a new scoreboard, but that left them quite short for anything to celebrate the ‘61 seniors.
Goshorn said his girlfriend suggested planting flowers to commemorate the class.
So he did. On a June weekend in 1961, Goshorn dug the space still being used today and planted some geraniums. Goshorn laughed that the surprise addition on the schoolyard lawn sparked a police investigation.
Following classes kept up the tradition. The class of ‘63 made the spot even better, Goshorn said.
The kids kept up the planting tradition before handing it to the horticulture students in 1990.
The students added ideas such as using flowers in the school colors, red and white.
Brown and her predecessor Mike Hogan have helped.
The students “take in way more than they realize” by working the planting.
But, “he does most of it on his own,” Brown said.
He’s who is largely keeping up the maintenance.
For 25 years or so, Goshorn dragged a hose 300 feet to water the flowerbed. He’s thankful Gordy Brockman put in an irrigation system.
Classmate Nora Kincaid has been helping buy bulbs.
Goshorn taught at Lynnwood High for his career, and was head coach of Lynnwood’s boys and girls cross country teams. Having a green thumb is his hobby.
Brown, the all-around ag science teacher, teaches animal science, agroecology (how agriculture interacts with the environment), advanced vet tech skills, floral design, and is Snohomish High’s Future Farmers of America adviser.
Teens need to know where their food comes from, Brown said, and “because there’s less farm families and less farms, it makes it even more important.”
It’s a misconception FFA is predominantly farmers’ kids. These days, about 10% are, Brown said. In FFA they learn to identify plant species, and how to estimate the erosion of a slope, among other skills.
