Many of you know that I was a history teacher, and my mind always turns to history. What history is all about is to enable us to understand the state we are in now by tracing the path we have followed from a starting point to get here. So, if you will bear with me I'd like to give you a brief historical sketch of the Sun Country Iris Society. Very brief and very, very sketchy. No statistics, I promise. Well maybe you might like to know how few members started the society. Frances Wvob and I just counted - - there were 13.

That was back in 1969, only 19 years. What we have coming up is the 20th year of operation. It all started when Archie Gerrard and maybe another one or two of the original members attended the Tucson Society's show in the spring of 1969. It was probably the Sunday afternoon a week later that I read a notice in the Arizona Republic's garden section about an iris show at Valley Garden Center. That was about 2:00 in the afternoon, so I jumped into my car and went down there. A few people were still there, but I got a very cool reception and the information that the show was over. I went back home and check out the garden section to see whether I had read the notice wrong. No, that's what it said - - until 5:00 Sunday afternoon.

Then I saw another little notice. Archie Gerrard was holding open garden at his home until 5:00. Into the car again and over to Archie's. I was the only visitor, but he was very friendly and hospitable, and his enthusiasm for irises rubbed off. I was already hooked on irises, even with the old dogs blooming in my yard. Somebody had given me a bunch of what was probably old Maytime or Tournament Queen -- a lavender biolor that was growing along my driveway from the carport to the street and making such a show that people driving by would stop to look and express amazement that irises - - or flags - - could do so well in Phoenix.

In the course of my visit with Archie he asked me if I would be interested in joining an iris society. He told me that he had been approached by the Regional Vice President of Region 15 about starting a Phoenix chapter of the American Iris Society. Now, there was already an iris society in Phoenix closely tied to the Valley Garden Center but not following AIS rules for affiliation, conduct of shows, etc. This club was always in need of money for itself and involved in raising money for the garden center. The AIS then, and still yet so far as I know, discouraged its member clubs from getting involved with community garden centers for various reasons. I do want to say that Sun Country has a good relationship with the Valley Garden Center and we very much appreciate the privilege of using the facility.

Archie finally got around to telling me that he had some eight or ten iris lovers interested in starting a new society. He had a vice president, a secretary, and a treasurer lined up, even a Region 15 representative. But they needed a president. Since I was a college teacher, surely I could preside at a meeting and serve as president, couldn't I? A few nights later we all met at his house to organize, and I went home wondering what in the world I had got myself into.

There followed a volume of correspondence with Region 15 and AIS officials to gain acceptance as an AIS affiliate. We met at homes - - mine or Archie's or somebody else's - - the first year or two until we got so big we had to find a larger place. First, the hospitality center of an insurance company on North Central; next First Federal Savings and Loan accross 19th Avenue from Chris Town; then at 20th Street and Camelback. Finally, to the Garden Center, where we feel fortunate and well cared for. In the meanwhile, the other iris society had ceased to exist, largely because of the death of one of its most influential members. Some of their real irisarians had already joined Sun Country.

From the very beginning, as we have seen, Region 15 sponsored us, welcomed us, and helped us in every way possible. I sometimes blush to think how naive I was in some of my early correspondence with Barbara Serdynski, the charming little gal who was RVP. We had to learn about how the Region works, about Region irises and auctions, guest irises, club irises, etc.; how clubs cooperated to form the region and how the clubs and region support each other. We had to learn about shows and judges and awards and judging and how uptight some entrants get. Imagine our astonishment to have some total strangers tell us at our first show that the judging was all a farce and judges awarded ribbons to the people they knew or wanted to win. We knew better but were somewhat taken aback.

We decided to have our 1970 spring show in a shopping mall. Such audacity! Now they are doing it throughout the AIS. That first show at Thomas Mall in 1970! We shall never forget it. We had to make tablecloths and holders for the horticulture entries. We had radio and TV coverage, newspaper publicity, and lots of hullaballoo for fewer than 200 horticulture entries and maybe a dozen artistic entries. There were a few members of the other society who were friendly toward us and entered our show to help us out. One by one, knowledgeable growers and arrangers joined our ranks and helped put us on the map. Many of the oldtimers in our current membership joined within the first three or four years while we were all learning together the difference between tall beardeds, spurias, lousianas, and learning how to grow them. Others have come to Phoenix from other parts of the country, bringing a higher level of expertise.

It has been fun. It has been work. It has been rewarding both in our sense of achievement as a club, gratifying to individual gardeners as we have gained knowledge of the world of iris and enjoyed growing them in our gardens, and also in some close and lasting friendships which have been formed over the years.

Sun Country has had its ups and downs, it triumphs and disappointments, its competition for medals, ribbons, and trophies, even competition for office. And yes, some cleavage as we have just been reminded. We are not going to have that happen again, are we - - no matter how the vote goes. There have been those who couldn't stand the heat and had to get out of the kitchen. There have been those who lined up to buy irises at bargain prices for their own yards and soon dropped out. There have even been those who apparently joined in hopes of professional exposure. But there has also been an ever growing corps of dedicated, hard working iris lovers who bought and planted and raised as many irises as they could and contributed their surplus to the club rhizome sales to enable the club to promote the club's aim to make Phoenix aware of irises - - big, bold, beautiful and growable irises for the Sun Country. And finally, there have been those who went absolutely all out to hybridise and plant and grow and introduce even better irises. These are the aims of the American Iris Society and the aims of the Sun Country Iris Society. As stated by our By-Laws . . . . .

The sole purpose of the Sun Country Iris Society is to stimulate and encourage the culture of iris in the area known as the Sun Country area. The Sun Country Iris Society is not organized to become a self sufficient entity in itself, but is designed as a means of implementing the principles and ideals of the American Iris Society in the Sun Country area.