{"id":6064,"date":"2017-05-03T09:17:32","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T13:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/?p=6064"},"modified":"2023-02-15T10:50:50","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T15:50:50","slug":"flower-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/2017\/05\/03\/flower-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Flower Power"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><a href=\"http:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/MindyLord.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-6063 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/MindyLord.jpg\" alt=\"Mindy Lord\" width=\"250\" height=\"166\" \/><\/a><\/h2>\n<h2>Contest promotes entrepreneurship to students<\/h2>\n<p>Everything\u2019s coming up roses for recent graduate (\u201916) Mindy Lord. The winner of Best Pitch in the 2015 Eagle FastPitch competition is the sole owner of a floral design business and flower farm. Think of the business reality show \u201cShark Tank\u201d when you think of Eagle FastPitch. The University competition connects promising entrepreneurs with community resources to help them start or grow existing businesses.<\/p>\n<p>Lord was one of 12 finalists who each had three minutes each to pitch their business venture or idea to a panel of judges that included academics, business professionals and community leaders. The competition was held before a large crowd at the Whitaker Black Box Theater in downtown Statesboro.<\/p>\n<p>Lord impressed the panel with her presentation and passion for her sustainable flower farm and floral design company. Her company, Luella, specializes in weddings and events. She grew up in Dudley, Georgia, and sells her fresh cut, locally grown flowers at farmers\u2019 markets in the neighboring town of Dublin.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Floral Designer Draws Inspiration from Her Southern Roots <\/strong><br \/>\nLord\u2019s interest in flowers stems \u201cfrom being raised in the countryside and living an old-fashioned way of life gathering homegrown vegetables and flowers from our gardens.\u201d Her business represents an eco-friendly and well-rounded floral design company she says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat makes my story different is that many of the supplies I use \u2014 whether a flower grown in my garden or a feather shed from our farm birds \u2014 celebrate a story with my end-user. They make you literally \u2018stop and smell the roses.\u2019 Just as the garden and flower farming bring personal fulfillment and a deeper appreciation for the land, my sustainable practices offer a safer, healthier and a more eco-friendly product to my customers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The new alumna is keeping busy planning for 16 weddings she has booked this year. The general studies major with an emphasis in entrepreneurship and business management also opened a full-service florist shop last fall.<\/p>\n<p>FastPitch is sponsored by the University\u2019s College of Business and the City Campus Business Innovation Group. Ryan Tewksbury finished the competition in second place with his Help Me Park app and Christophe Chin placed third for the video production company, sCotoma. <em>\u2014 Sandra Bennett<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everything\u2019s coming up roses for recent graduate (\u201916) Mindy Lord.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":6245,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[55],"class_list":["post-6064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","tag-spring-2017"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}