Heritage Plaza

I grabbed a couple shots of the work being done on Snow College's new Heritage Plaza this afternoon. In the top photo workers put finishing touches on the Heritage Wall of Honor which surrounds the plaza. The inspiration for this wall comes from the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Washington D.C. The names of hundreds of people who have donated money to the College for scholarships are engraven on the granite wall. When a student stands in the plaza and looks at the sea of names around her she will be reminded of the sacrifice that hundreds of people made to help her and others succeed. Scholarship money does not fall out of the sky--it comes from the pockets of people who selflessly give for others' dreams.

You can see the landscaping work in the lower photo. As part of our goal to obtain a LEED certification for the Karen H. Huntsman Library, the landscaping associated with the library is designed to minimize water use. Around the plaza workers are planting shrubs and ground cover rather than grass. And the plants will be watered with a underground drip system rather than sprinklers. I asked the landscape contractor today how many plants they are putting in--18 trees (flowering Pear in the middle ring and London Plane on the outside); approximately 300 shrubs of 15 varieties; and (I am not kidding) approximately 12,000 separate ground cover plants of three varieties. Wow.

The plaza should be mostly finished next week. The fence will be removed by Homecoming next Saturday, October 24th.