Left to right, Chesterton High students Lily Linsemeyer, Lilly Tucker and Madison Jackson painting pumpkins at a Horticulture Club meeting last month. TOM KEEGAN/photo When the Chesterton High courtyard is awash with bright colors in the spring and more bulbs are popping than at a Taylor Swfit publicity opportunity, will anyone stop to wonder how it grew so beautiful? Will anyone figure out that it was members, past and present, of the school’s Horticulture Club planting in the autumn to facilitate spring greetings with splashes of nature’s rich colors? If not, no matter. Horticulturists don’t embrace the world of plants in search of plaudits, rather because they like to clear some space and create a place for nature to do its thing in all its glory, and in turn clear their own minds.
A couple of years out from its 10-year anniversary, the Chesterton Horticulture Club might never have been born at Chesterton if not for a young teacher’s fashion faux pas, which only qualified as that because of the campus on which it was worn. It was in art teacher/family farmer Jill Smoker’s former role as an assistant soccer coach at Chesterton that led to the birth of the club. “Why are you wearing that? Why are you wearing green?” then CHS student Nichi Achor asked standing on the grass in a rare place where green would not be considered an appropriate shirt for the message it bore.
“I didn’t think anything of it because I was still a fairly new teacher and I said, ‘Oh,.
