UHV News

UHV News

UHV celebrates opening of Kay’s Grove

Ron Walker, left; Carter Walker-Dugan, center; and Bruce Walker pose together Tuesday at the opening of Kay’s Grove, a garden on UHV’s campus created in memory of Kay Kerr Walker.
Ron Walker, left; Carter Walker-Dugan, center; and Bruce Walker pose together Tuesday at the opening of Kay’s Grove, a garden on UHV’s campus created in memory of Kay Kerr Walker.

A group of community leaders and higher education supporters and friends gathered Tuesday at the University of Houston-Victoria to celebrate the memory of Kay Kerr Walker and commemorate the opening of a garden in her honor.

Kay’s Grove is a 29,000-square-foot memorial landscaped garden for students, faculty, staff and visitors to enjoy on campus. The garden is located between University Center and University North and features trees, several flower beds, sloping green lawns and a waterfall fountain. In the future, the garden also will be home to outdoor art installations.

Bob Glenn
Bob Glenn

“When Laurie and I first came to Victoria, it was Kay Walker who sought us out to make sure we were welcomed,” UHV President Bob Glenn said. “Time and again, she went above and beyond to make sure we knew that we were in the right place, that we belonged here. Now we will have a place on campus where students will be able to go and feel that they are in the right place and that they belong. Her great warmth as a person who cared will live on in this garden. I believe she would approve.”

Walker was a longtime supporter of both the UH System and UHV. She served on the UH System Board of Regents from 1993 to 1999 as vice chair and secretary. For years, she served on various UHV search and art committees and as a nonvoting member of the UHV President’s Regional Advisory Board. She passed away Sept. 1, 2020, from COVID-19 complications.

The idea for Kay’s Grove came to Ron as he walked past the meditation garden outside Citizen’s Medical Center while Kay battled COVID-19 inside. The garden was one that Kay helped design. She loved nature and beauty, and the hospital garden was a place where people could have a moment of peace and tranquility when they had loved ones in the hospital, he said. Now, students and others at UHV will have a space that encapsulates Kay’s beliefs and philosophy.

“When I was walking around this garden, I saw that it captures it all: her spirit, her beliefs, her love of nature and her appreciation of all things beautiful and comfortable,” Ron said during the ceremony. “All of this incorporates who Kay was.”

In addition to Ron’s address, attendees listened to remarks from Walker’s family members and people who were involved in designing the garden, including Glenn; Carter Walker Dugan, Kay and Ron’s daughter; Johnny Steele, a landscape architect from Houston; María Gaztambide, director and chief curator of Public Art of the UH System; and Tiarah Figueroa, a UHV student and former UHV Student Government Association president.

Tiarah Figueroa
Tiarah Figueroa

“I am glad to see this garden on campus, and I knew the project would represent how beautiful Kay was both inside and out,” Figueroa said. “It’s a pleasure to see this project come to life, and I know it will be well appreciated by the students and everyone else at UHV.”

The memorial garden was designed by Johnny Steel Design of Houston. It will include native and adapted plants with the intent to have different colors and textures throughout the seasons so that the landscape can be enjoyed year-round. Different plants will bloom in the spring, summer and fall, which will help create a memory for visitors when they visit the garden during any season. Some of the plants visitors can expect to see include native Texas flowers such as coneflower and Indian paintbrush, almond verbena, Turk’s Cap, American beautyberry, fringe trees, iris and various bedding roses.

The University of Houston-Victoria, located in the heart of the Coastal Bend region since 1973 in Victoria, Texas, offers courses leading to more than 50 academic programs in the schools of Arts & Sciences; Business Administration; and Education, Health Professions & Human Development. UHV provides face-to-face classes at its Victoria campus, as well as an instructional site in Katy, Texas, and online classes that students can take from anywhere. UHV supports the American Association of State Colleges and Universities Opportunities for All initiative to increase awareness about state colleges and universities and the important role they have in providing a high-quality and accessible education to an increasingly diverse student population, as well as contributing to regional and state economic development.