Trident student fourth selected for French garden internship
March 20, 2018
Eleis Lester, a horticulture student at Trident Technical College, has been selected for a gardening internship this summer in Paris at the Garden of Bagatelle, an 18th-century landscaped park and chateau.
Lester is the fourth Trident student to participate in the internship that Magnolia sponsors with the French Heritage Society in Paris. The local program, established in 2011, also receives support from the Alliance Française de Charleston.
Lester said Magnolia and the Alliance Française “together have created one of the most unique learning experience in our region, and I am delighted to represent Charleston in France this summer. The best learning happens in new places with new people. I can’t wait!”
Lester earned a double degree in the history of mathematics and science and ancient Greek and French in 2000 at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Md. The internship at Bagatelle, Lester said, will give her an opportunity “to combine a life-long intuitive love of plants with a mathematical understanding of their behavior and preferences.”
Tony Bertauski, Horticulture Program coordinator at Trident, gave Lester high marks, calling her desire to learn “second to none.” Outside of the classroom, Bertauski said Lester volunteers at Hampton Park and participates in the Lowcountry Native Plant Society.
Lester is no stranger to programs offered by Magnolia to assist student who are interested in horticulture. She also received from the Magnolia Foundation last year a scholarship named for 19th century attorney, journalist and diplomat Archibald Grimké. Born into slavery in 1849 on a Lowcountry rice plantation, Grimké was one of the first black students enrolled in the Harvard Law School. He was a cousin of the Rev. John Grimké Drayton, who in 1870 opened Magnolia’s gardens as Charleston’s first tourist attraction.
When Lester was selected for the Grimké scholarship, she said, it will “allow me to enroll in classes that I could not otherwise afford as well as purchase important books and resources that will be vital to my career. Upon graduating, I hope to work in the public sector, helping municipalities design and maintain public spaces with a focus on native plants and sustainable practices.”
Lester is scheduled to graduate this spring.
Other Trident students selected for the internship are: Katherine Reeves White, 2011; John W. Odom III, 2015; and Ashley Wiggins, 2017.
