MSU Senior Tops in Floral Design

MSU Senior Tops in Floral Design
Some people spend years struggling to succeed in the big city, but for two Mississippi State students last week, all it took was a few bouquets.

Vicksburg native Suzanne Williams and Callaway High graduate Aisha Booker topped more than 50 students from 13 schools from around the country to finish first and second, respectively, in the American Institute of Floral Designers' Student Floral Design Competition in New York on July 7.

Competitors were judged in four competitions: Flowers to Wear, Hospital Design, Bridal and Sympathy Tribute, with the overall award going to the best composite score. Williams won first place in the Flowers to Wear category and took third in Bridal. Booker placed second in the Hospital Design category in addition to her overall second place finish.
Both girls are entering this fall as fifth-year seniors in MSU's unique retail floristry management program, a four-year degree program with about 20 students under the school's horticulture major. The RFM emphasis, begun in the early 1970s, requires business, art and design classes as well as horticulture to prep students for running a florist shop.

But MSU students also get hands-on retail and public-relations training. It's the student-run florist in the center of campus that sets the program in Starkville apart from other retail floristry manag