RE: [GWL]Garden Globes

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Texas Public Television Producer Takes Top Honors with Garden Writers Award

Washington, DC – June 1, 2003 – Linda Lehmusvirta, a producer with Austin, Texas’s public television station KLRU, has received the Garden Globe Award for Best Talent in Electronic Media.

Lehmusvirta, the co-creator and producer of Central Texas Gardener, received the award for the episode entitled “Hill Country Lavender," a story of how the love of a single plant can radically change a life.

The winning episode beautifully tells the story of how two very talented freelance journalists completely turned their lives around after they falling in love with a single plant while doing a story on perfumes in France.  Upon returning to Texas, the couple left their profession and planted acres of lavender.  Their new passion turned into a thriving business that Lehmusvirta eloquently captured on film. 

“Jeannie and Robb’s story was so compelling I had to produce it, and then it just seemed like the perfect submission for the Garden Globe Awards,” says Lehmusvirta.  “Their story represents all the fast-paced people who change their lives by simply loving a plant—which is what changed my direction in television, and in life, too.”

Of her Garden Globe, Lehmusvirta says it is the honor of her life.

 “When I learned that I’d received the GWA award for this video, I ran down the halls of KLRU, jumping and shouting all the way. Being recognized now for the sweat and passion behind Central Texas Gardener means joining esteemed winners from years past, who I admire so much, and previously only dreamed that someday I would join them.” 

Lehmusvirta is now one of nine finalists for the Garden Globe Award of the Year, the highest honor given a horticultural communicator. The award will be announced at the 55^th annual Garden Writers Association Symposium in Chicago on August 18, 2003.

“Each year the GWA seeks to recognize the best talent in the field of garden communications to receive one of our coveted Garden Globe Awards,” says GWA Executive Director Robert LaGasse.

Since the early 1980s, the GWA annual awards program has recognized outstanding writing, photography, graphic design and illustration for books newspaper stories, magazine articles and other works focused on gardening. In recent years awards have expanded to include on-air talent, production and direction for radio, television, video, Internet and other electronic media.

GWA is an international organization of more than 1,800 professional communicators who focus on the $69 billion lawn and garden industry.

To view all the 2003 Garden Globe recipients, log on to www.gwaa.org/awards.