State Champion Landscape Coach Retires from Saul

Barbara Brown taught landscaping at W.B. Saul High School in Roxborough for more than 30 years, and nothing changed more over that time than how her students were perceived.

See, besides being a teacher, Brown is also a nine-time state champion landscape design coach.

Every year, the school’s students would participate in a statewide competition in State College.

“When we first started going, they would laugh at the city kids,” Brown said.  “Sometimes they would use racial epithets.  There were a couple of situations where kids from other schools were sent home.”

“It was a great lesson for the kids.  It taught them to rise above,” Brown said.  “Now, people don’t want to see our students because we win a lot of the time.”

W.B. Saul is a normal high school except that it has an agriculture program that comes with livestock and crops.

“It’s an unusual place,” Brown said.  “I love to work with plants and kids.  Nowhere else would I get to do both.”

Brown said that Saul works as a school because it provides a lot of different opportunities for a lot of different learning styles.

“We have kids that participate in FFA (Future Farmers of America), and we have other students who do internships at Longwood Gardens,” Brown said.

She added, “The beautiful thing about this school is that there are so many opportunities to develop.”

Brown also thinks that the things they teach at Saul will be vital in the future.

“Sustainability is a big part of what we teach her,” Brown said.  “The population is getting to big, and they’re [the students] going to have to be the generation that figures out how to feed all these people.”

“That’s why you get up every morning,” Brown said.  “Everything we do here is important.”

Brown added, “People keep asking me who I’m going to miss when I retire.  I’m going to miss the kids.  I’m going to miss everyone.