 Evie and Harold Dyck |
by Susan Miller '67 Balzer
Harold and Evie Dyck envisioned a place that would foster an appreciation of the beauty of Kansas. The Dyck Arboretum of the Plains does that—and more—as it continues to offer a place for young and old to connect with nature.
“They started the arboretum because of my mother’s great love of the Kansas prairie and the Great Plains and her spiritual connection to nature and God’s creation,” Julia Roupp said. One of the Dyck's daughters, she and her husband Brad live in Ashland, Ore.
“Dad shared her love of the Kansas plains. His vision for the arboretum was guided by his Christian principles of stewardship and his desire to give back to the community that he loved so much.”
Harold Dyck died May 29, 2007.
When Harold and Evie Dyck gave the 31 acres to Hesston College in 1981, they also gave an endowment that covers about 35 percent of the annual operating costs.
At that time, the land bordering Hickory Street was a wheat field. Some of the oldest trees were standing, but many have been planted in the past 26 years. A pond was made beside a large weeping willow.
A visitor center built in 1999 has a meeting/dining room that seats 85-100, plus a gift shop and kitchen. One greenhouse is nearly finished; another greenhouse and a storage building are planned.
Nearly 500 different species of trees, shrubs, wildflowers, and grasses grow at the arboretum. Plants that adapt to the Kansas prairie and relate to each other in their natural settings are chosen.
The arboretum operates on a budget of $140,000 and is not funded by the city or Hesston College, although the college provides administrative and business help. Governed by a board of trustees, it has non-profit status due to its ownership by Hesston College.
Volunteers do much of the planting and help with plant and gift sales.
More and more the arboretum is used as an educational resource. “Harold wanted this place to be a benefit for the community of Hesston and the surrounding area,” arboretum director Julie Irish Torseth said. “(The Harold Dyck memorial established for the arboretum by Mennonite Foundation’s challenge grant of $25,000) ‘is a fitting tribute.’ Evie wanted it to be a place of quiet meditation—a place to feel the healing power of nature.”
Jim Locklear, former director of the Dyck Arboretum, shared this memory of Harold Dyck: “I will always remember Harold as a gracious, kind-hearted man who cared greatly about others. He was also a man with a deep sense of place—he loved Kansas and his home town. But most of all, he was a man who loved his wife. You could see it in his eyes, even when he talked about Evie when she wasn’t around. I guess that explains why he built a garden for her.”
Presently, Brad Guhr, the arboretum’s education coordinator, is developing the Prairie Window Project on 18 acres—part of the original 31 acres—of farmland south of the hedgerow that borders the 13 acres that have been planted and developed since the Dycks gave the land for the arboretum.
The arboretum is partnering with area landowners to create a restored prairie that will give people a feel for what the original tall grass prairie that covered the Central Plains was like.
Susan Miller Balzer is a free-lance writer in Hesston, Kan. A member of the Hesston College Class of 1967, she serves as a staff reporter at the Hesston Record.
Dyck Arboretum of the Plains