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Freeman Prairie Arboretum

While serving as CEO of Freeman (S.D.) Academy from 1994-99, Larry Horner ’67 began dreaming.

His vision: to transform 40 acres of prairie land in the southwest corner of Freeman, on the academy campus, into Freeman Prairie Arboretum – an area ripe with native trees, bushes and grasses that would serve the school and the community as a place of education, beauty and more.

Today the arboretum includes three sprawling ponds loaded with fish; a mile-long walking path that passes through gardens, native trees and grasses, over bridges and around an amphitheater; an interpretive center; and an island with a gazebo.

An early supporter of the idea was Lyle Preheim ’66, who was a former director of development for Freeman Academy, farmed east of Freeman and had a love for and knowledge of the prairie in general and trees in particular.

“The land told us what to do,” says Preheim. “The design was predetermined for us.”

Preheim’s design took into consideration weather patterns – a rose garden, for example, would be built on a north slope behind the seating area at the amphitheater “to protect it from the dry and desiccating winds of summer.”

Sugar maples respond well to cold weather, Preheim says, so they would be planted in the less sheltered northeast portion of the 40 acres. Conifers don’t like “wet feet,” so they would be located on the highest part of the arboretum.

“You can have a dream, but dreaming doesn’t mean a thing unless it’s shared,” says Preheim. “We were so fortunate to have people come to us and say, ‘I want to help out.’”

From the time construction of the Prairie Arboretum began in May of 1999, countless volunteers have stepped forward to offer time, energy, resources and money to help build an arboretum that today is valued at well over $1 million.

Other Bethel alumni connected to the project include Freeman native Norman Epp ’79, Wheat Ridge, Colo., who placed a silver limestone sculpture in the arboretum as a tribute to his father, Walter Epp; and the late LaMarr Waltner ’79, who died in 2002 at age 48 and whose parents, LaNae and LaVerne Waltner of Freeman, made a substantial donation toward construction of the arboretum’s Prairie Rose Amphitheater in his memory.

At the arboretum’s dedication in September 2002, Marlan Kaufman, who in 2000 succeeded Horner as Freeman Academy president, called the arboretum a “treasure.” Ivan Friesen, former pastor of Hutterthal Mennonite Church west of Freeman, based his comments on Genesis 1:3, which talks about the creation of earth and sea.

“Whenever humankind cares for the earth and vegetation, God pronounces it good,” he said. “It is one of the great miracles of life.”

– Krista Graber, from a 2009 series in the Freeman Courier by Jeremy Waltner

Photos courtesy of the Freeman Courier