MSU florist joins NYC team to help launch new 'Sopranos' season

Contact: Maridith Geuder

When stars of the hit series "The Sopranos" gathered recently in New York to launch the award-winning HBO drama's third season, they partied amidst the floral drama of an award-winning Mississippi State professional.

Lynette L. McDougald, business manager of the University Florist and a retail floristry management instructor, was the only non-New Yorker on the eight-person floral design team that lavishly decorated the early September Rockefeller Center event.

Floral coordinator for the 1999 U.S. Women's Open Championship at West Point's Old Waverly golf course, McDougald regularly provides design guidance for numerous MSU events. An MSU horticulture graduate, she has worked since 1998 at the campus florist, a full-service, student-staffed business that's a major component of MSU's unique academic program in retail floristry management.

"A New York broker with whom we deal recommended that I be included in the team," said McDougald, winner of the Mississippi Florist Association's 2001 design competition.

McDougald said more than 3,000 people were invited to the "Sopranos" gala, whose floral budget exceeded $100,000. To prepare the necessary 250 table centerpieces and 25 large buffet pieces, she and other team members began work at 1 a.m. for the 9 p.m. celebration.

"My work actually began before I left Starkville, though," the Eupora native explained. "I was asked to locate California sources for unusual foliages and fillers."

To get an idea of the challenge, consider that the florists were working with:

--800 stems of white hydrangeas,

--more than 1,000 cattelya orchids,

--300 cymbidium orchids, and

--cases of fragrant dill, sage and green persimmon branches.

It was McDougald's job to locate the dill, sage and persimmon supplies.

"We worked around a general theme of a garden party, with very Tuscan elements," she explained. The Rockefeller Center's ice skating rink, which has terrazzo flooring during the summer, was closed for the day to accommodate the event.

McDougald said the intense behind-the-scenes design efforts exposed her to a new level of professional challenge. "It was a unique experience for the entire team," she said.

And, like the true professionals they are, the floral designers completed their work in anonymity.

"We never saw a single member of the cast," McDougald said, with a laugh.