East Texas Daylily Society
Established May 1990

The East Texas Daylily Society was established in 1990, through the efforts of Roxanne Fessler, Nell Shimek, and Mickey Sanders. The charter members were Christine Atchison, Roxanne & John Fessler, Finas Gipson, Snooks Harville, Joyce Lewis, and Lucille Wynne. The first meeting took place in the Tyler Public Library. We currently meet most months at the Tyler Rose Garden Center.

Our club renovated and established the Edna Lankart Memorial Daylily Beds at the Rose Garden in the Spring of 1991. Edna Lankart and Louis Squyres had originally planted these beds in 1978. In 2001, these beds became an official AHS Display Garden. The club replaced the daylilies in these beds with more recent cultivars in 2007. The original Edna Lankart Trophy (for the best unregistered seedling displayed in a Regional Meeting awards bed, by a Region 6 hybridizer who is not a member of the host club) is on display in the Rose Garden Center.

We established two scholarships at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, for horticulture students. We all feel education is very important to promoting interest in Hemerocallis, and our plant sales each year allow us to support this effort.

Our club has hosted daylily flower shows and several exhibition events. Several of our members have won awards at Regional Shows and we are proud of their accomplishments.

Historically, we've had two well-known hybridizers in our club - Joyce Lewis and Snooks Harville.  In addition, our membership frequently includes both amateurs and hopeful hybridizers who are yet to register their introductions.