After graduation, I started The Nursery Center in Sulphur, La. Then, after closing The Nursery Center in 1971, My wife, Joan and our three children, Mike, Susan and Chrissy (who was to be born in four months) and I, moved to Dallas,Texas.

While in Dallas, I worked with a couple of large companies. The first one was Lion Country Safari. My interview for that position was rather interesting. Arnold Crevanes, a reknowned landscaping designer from California, conducted the interview. It was done while he was overseeing the planting of several oak trees.

The interesting thing about the interview was that Arnold and I would talk while we were both riding in the bucket of a front end loader along with the various trees that were being moved to the planting sites. Arnold was a "hands on" type of guy. He didn't use any designs that were drawn out. Rather, he would have the concept in his mind and would work on site, to lay out how he wanted everything to be placed. Interestingly enough, after my "unorthodox" interview, I was hired as the Landscape Superintendent for the Grand Prairie division of Lion Country Safari.

I have personally found that for me, it is best to work from a printed Landscape design. However, I have appropriated the "hands on" approach. I will normally be involved with each phase of the work of a landscaping installation.

After leaving Lion Country Safari, I became the Landscape Supervisor for Miller Multi Management. This company was affiliated with Henry S. Miller Co., a large realty company in the Dallas - Ft. Worth Metroplex.

I am telling all of this because it was while working with Miller Multi Management, that God called Joan and me to "be available" to go wherever He would direct us.

We spent the next several years working with Christian schools and churches in Southwest Louisiana. While working in these various locations, Mike and I, once he was old enough, would supplement our income by contracting landscape installations and maintenance for various businesses and homeowners.

It was in 1998, that Joan and I closed the Greenhouse and nursery in Moss Bluff, La. and moved to DeRidder to help Mike in his church and Christian school for a brief period of time. (He was pastoring New Covenant Fellowship in DeRidder, La.)

Mike and I have continued to work together in Southern Landscaping as we work with various churches and mission projects in the area. We will schedule about five major Landscaping jobs each year and fill in, as time allows, with other horticultural jobs, such as pruning and transplanting.

Our desire is to provide quality workmanship as we continue to develop beauty in the area. One of the areas in which we have been very successful is in working with older, overgrown properties and restoring them.

We have also, developed a firewood business. In fact, we have been delivering firewood in Southwest Louisiana for about twenty years. We now have over 300 customers to whom we deliver.

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