A legacy of beautification

Accolades for Martha Knies have been well earned. Take a look around Wimberley and you’ll see Martha’s stamp. It is all over the spring wildflowers or spruced up highways with minimal trash. It is in the flower beds that aren’t over grown with weeds. The fingerprint of her green thumb is everywhere.

The landscaping and beauty adds and enhances the charm of small town Wimberley. It doesn’t go unnoticed. Every weekend visitors flock to the valley to shop, experience nature and see those little things like the seasonal decorations on Cypress Creek Bridge or the Welcome to Wimberley signs – two of Martha’s other initiatives.

Wimberley is indeed blessed to have someone like Martha set an example for all of us to follow. The results surround us and when people move here, they take ownership of the land and strive to keep it pristine.

Keep Wimberley Beautiful is still striving to preserve that small town feel and is successful, but before Martha and some friends pulled weeds on the Wimberley Square, there was no such organization or effort.

Martha knows small town life, growing up in Marlin, Texas, about 25 miles southeast of Waco. At the time, like Wimberley, it was a tourist town due to the many natural hot springs, where people came to “take the cure,” and bathe in mineral waters.

She graduated from Marlin High School. “I would give flowers to the teacher. I would get them from the neighbor’s yard, sunflowers. I’ve always loved flowers. I grew up poor, we didn’t have much of anything,” Martha said.

She was a good student in school. “Even then education was the way out of poverty.” She had two teachers that recognized her talent. “My problem was how to get to college. Nobody went to college.”

But her two teachers had friends, and they had her apply for scholarships. She was admitted to Sam Houston State Teachers College. When she first arrived in Huntsville, she saw a great big building behind a chain link fence. There were no trees or flowers and her idea of a university and what it should look like vanished. Finally she was told that she was mistaken, the building she was gazing upon was the Huntsville State Penitentiary. Thankfully, it wasn’t the building Martha was headed for.

Her teachers arranged for her to get a job. She waited tables and saved her money to pay for college. “The job helped me with my social skills, meeting people and talking to them, maybe a little too much. The boss said, ‘We just serve them, not feed them.’” She also waited on the local sheriff who never smiled. When she asked him about it, he said, “If you had my job you wouldn’t smile either.”

Her studies were temporarily ended her sophomore year when she met and married another student who was in the ROTC program. Soon they were off to Fort Bliss in Washington State. She loved the Northwest with its blooming flowers and trees.

After his tour there, they moved back to Huntsville, where he got a job at the prison and was “adamant about me finishing college.” It took her four years but she became a Graduate Teaching Assistant and obtained her Masters in English.

She taught English in two small high schools, where due to the rural population she also was “student council advisor, librarian and directed the senior play.” Having been a librarian, she got a Library Science degree and organized the books in order by applying the Dewey Decimal System, where before there was no organized order. As student council advisor she, “pushed to plant more trees, bushes, make beds. You can always improve with trees and plants. And flowers, always have been my special love.”

Her marriage didn’t last; they ended it in divorce, but she had kind words about her ex as he insisted she get her degree so that she could always fend for herself. But a new beau came into her life by way of an Episcopal priest in Huntsville.

“He was divorced also… we fell in love and were married. He was the chaplain for the university, the small church and the prison system.” After a prison uprising, he found an opening in Pharr, Texas. “The church was in turmoil, it really needed my help.” Being a preacher’s wife, she did help. Pharr was where she became acquainted with Keep Texas Beautiful and went into action. “Keep Pharr Beautiful. It needed it.”

Soon it was time to retire from preaching and the Hill Country looked promising as a place to retire. She got lost around San Marcos and ended up on Ranch Road 12.

“When I drove over the hill, I didn’t know places like this existed in Texas… We explored Wimberley. We wanted an active, dynamic place to retire.” They then moved to Wimberley. They had 10 days to celebrate.

“My husband retired and (at St. Stephen) the priest became sick and resigned. Guess who became interim pastor? It took him 15 minutes to come out of retirement… He loved it, and they loved him. They introduced us, and we became a part of the Wimberley family.”

The Keep Wimberley Beautiful organization started in the early ‘90s with a few friends sitting and having breakfast at the Cypress Creek Café. They started to talk about all the weeds that were there. ‘When is someone going to do something about that?’ And we said that if we wanted it done we have to do it ourselves,” Martha said.

The friends got down and started to pull the weeds, thought how silly it was as they were nicely dressed and decided to meet the next Monday. At that time the facade of the Square was completely different. There was no Wimberley Square sign, and there was a cement median in the center of RR 12 that separated the turn lanes, filled with rocks and other rubble. KWB then removed the rocks and asphalt from the median strip and planted flowers. They then became members of the Keep Texas Beautiful.

KWB was soon everywhere in Wimberley fixing up and making new flower beds or seeding bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush on fields surrounding the town.

It has grown in size and scope ever since. And after starting two different chapters, it is no wonder that the state level of the organization began to take notice.

“The Governor’s Community Achievement Awards annually endows Texas communities with a share of landscaping prize money, to be used in the construction of a beautification project within the winning community,” according to TxDOT website.

Soon KWB was winning Governor’s Community Achievement awards – three in fact. The application form is lengthy and is a list of seven qualifications: Community Leadership and Coordination, Public Awareness, Education, Beautification and Community improvement, Litter Prevention and Cleanup, Solid Waste Management (such as discarded tires, appliances etc.), and Litter Laws and Illegal Dumping.

Under the leadership of Martha, KWB grew and the town has been better for it.

The past few years, she slowed down her work with KWB a bit and is now a member only. But her initiative and leadership deserve recognition, which Keep Texas Beautiful did this year.

“Keep Texas Beautiful presents, this once-in-a-lifetime distinction is awarded to an individual who has provided outstanding leadership in improving and enhancing the environment of their community, the state of Texas and beyond. Martha Knies of Wimberley.”

The town would be a lot drearier without KWB and Martha Knies leadership, and the town recognizes that. Just one reason it has named a park after her.

“My wish is to stay always like this, living quietly in a corner of nature.”

Claude Monet