Sandra Valencia, a Metro Tech freshman, plants rose bushes at the courtyard of the Westward Ho.

THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC/THE PHOENIX GAZETTE January 28, 1991 By Pat Kossan, Staff writer Photo by Dana Leonard / Staff photographer

While their colleagues are practicing hog presentation and sheep shearing, several FFA members are toiling in the soil in the heart of downtown Phoenix.

They're planning, digging and planting gardens in the Westward Ho's courtyard, enhancing the landscaping for a spring flowering.

A $500 grant from FFA, formerly known as Future Farmers of America, is helping move this project forward, along with a few dozen elderly sidewalk supervisors.

When Mary Jones arrived to live at the Westward Ho 10 years ago, the lush courtyard of Phoenix's once-prestigious address had been neglected down to the dirt.

The historic hotel was being remodeled and refurbished for its new role as a federally subsidized home for elderly and disabled renters. But there was no money to return the courtyard dirt to its former beauty.

So Jones took it as a personal crusade to get the grounds growing.

If you knew Jones, you wouldn't have to ask how she has turned the rough yard into what she likes to call her secret garden.

This is a woman who at 65 decided that she was too young to retire from teaching so took a job at a one-room school in Castle Hot Springs, where her students arrived on horseback. She taught and lived in the schoolhouse until she was 70.

Now Jones is 85, and only she can detect that she might be slowing down. She has put her charm and energy into finding people willing to re-create the Westward Ho courtyard.

Her effort has attracted horticultural landscape students at Metro Tech Vocational Institute.

It isn't the first time Metro Tech vocational students have come to Jones' aid. They've repaired the used pool furniture Jones hustled from the Pointe resorts, and they've built the hotel's 350 tenants a masonry barbecue and a wooden gazebo.

But it is the first time FFA members have been this deep into the city working under the direction of Metro Tech teacher Trish Zaput.

''I've never seen anything like this,'' said Julie Clausen, vice president of the 12-state FFA central region and a junior at the University of Nebraska.

Clausen was on a tour of the state's FFA programs when she stopped to review the FFA work at the Westward Ho. ''I'll share this story all across the country as a pilot project,'' Clausen said.

Jones said the program offers Westward Ho more than just free labor and the students more than experience.

''You have no idea what this program has done for these people,'' Jones said. ''It's made us a family. Even a great big giant of a kid will give you a bear hug. And I always fix them lunch.''

The FFA gardeners and landscapers say they like working with The Westward Ho tenants.

FFA member Sandra Valencia, 16, said there are far worse things than some friendly advice from a grandpa or grandma.

''We have a good time,'' said fellow FFA gardener Cecilia Gonzales, 17. ''We laugh a lot.''

''And we get to eat our vegetables,'' Valencia added.