20 Who Count: Debbie Nickell

Dec. 21—Debbie Nickell may not be a native of Stanberry, Missouri, but 19 years of volunteer work bringing an iconic city structure back to life with native wildflowers has brought her closer to the town more than she ever could have imagined.

Nickell, a longtime teacher, knew almost nothing about wildflowers before she embarked on a journey with newfound friends from Stanberry to learn as much as they could about the best way to design and maintain a garden to surround the city's aging bandstand, which was in dire need of repair.

"We always felt that it was such a good community to us," she said. "We needed to give something back to the community."

With eight 180-square-foot plots to fill, Nickell and Mariam Goforth worked five days a week from April to November for years putting sections together before it grew and flourished into the award-winning garden it is today.

The garden has received two straight Garden of Excellence awards from Grow Native, a Missouri Prairie Foundation program. While 11 other gardens in the state also received the award, Stanberry's was the only one maintained entirely by volunteers.

With the garden now a beloved centerpiece of the park and mainstay events, getting the community to appreciate the unique beauty of native wildflowers after initial skepticism was a transformation that made the hard work all the more worthwhile.

"When people started supporting that with their donations ... oh my it was wonderful," Nickell said. "We felt like we had done a good deed."