Contact: Sammy McDavid
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Two Mississippi State seniors from Starkville again are champions in national competition sponsored by the American Institute of Floral Designers.
For the second consecutive year, Mariah R. Baird and Jena Oh took best overall team honors in the student challenge held this year at Palm Desert, Calif. Oh also won best overall individual honors, as well as first in flowers-to-carry and second in dried-flower design.
Flowers-to-carry, dried-flower and centerpiece designs were the categories in which the MSU team and some 60 other students from 15 universities and colleges competed.
Baird, who also is completing a second degree in landscape architecture, received a $3,500 scholarship provided by the AIFD Foundation. Though not a member of the team, fellow senior Mallory E. Emison of Saltillo received a $2,500 AIFD scholarship based on her studies.
All three are floral management majors who have worked part-time at the MSU Florist.
The MSU team's training was supervised by Jim DelPrince and Lynette McDougald, both AIFD-certified designers who advise the campus AIFD student chapter. DelPrince is an associate professor of plant and soil sciences, while McDougald is a floral instructor and business manager of the campus florist shop.
Also at the national convention, McDougald was installed on the board of directors of AIFD's Southern Regional Chapter and named to the organization's Education Committee.
MSU is among only a few U.S. universities offering a degree in floral management. The MSU Florist is both a full-service commercial enterprise and a hands-on instructional laboratory for plant and soil sciences majors seeking the specialized training.
LOCAL EDITORS: Baird is the daughter of Richard and Sonya Baird; Emison, the daughter of Robert and Neita Dillard. The parents of Oh, who is from Seoul, South Korea, are not listed.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.