Foley’s new butterfly garden is located along the Rose Trail, just north of the Foley Dog Park, and is open to the public.

Photo by Jessica Vaughn

Butterflies were spotted enjoying the new garden during the dedication ceremony for Terry Underwood.

Photo by Jessica Vaughn

Photo by Jessica Vaughn

Photo by Jessica Vaughn

Photo by Jessica Vaughn

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FOLEY - If you’ve walked along the Wilbourne Antique Rose Trail in Foley recently, you may have noticed two newer additions to the path: butterfly gardens. The newest butterfly garden, located next to the Foley Dog Park (204-298 S Chicago Street), was dedicated to Terry Underwood, an advocate for public butterfly gardens who passed away last December.

“Terry was so passionate about the Beautification Committee,” said Mayor Ralph Hellmich. “I had known him for a long time, and he just loved growing things … He made a passion of growing things, and I don’t think there could be anything more appropriate than to dedicate this garden to Terry.”

Underwood’s wife, Mary Ann Mannich Underwood, was present at the dedication ceremony to receive a special plaque in honor of the dedication. Also present were elected officials, city staff, members of Foley’s Revitalization and Beautification Board, Foley Main Street, and friends of Underwood. The butterfly garden was designed by Chad Watkins of WAS Design, Inc. The majority of the construction of the new butterfly garden was completed in-house.

Underwood worked in education for 30 years and spent 23 of those years as the agricultural teacher at Foley High School. During that time, he built butterfly gardens at the Foley Elementary School and Foley High School, and served 15 years on Foley’s Revitalization and Beautification Board.

“Terry often spoke about the building of butterfly gardens to the citizens and visitors to the city of Foley, and there are now two beautiful butterfly gardens located in Foley, here on the Rose Trail,” Hellmich said. “For his many contributions to the community and the Foley High School and elementary school, it is only fitting for the butterfly garden located near the Foley Dog Park to be dedicated to Mr. Terry Underwood for his many contributions to this community and Foley schools, and publicly recognize and honor him for his years of community service. His efforts will continue to inspire all of those that he touched.

“We really loved Terry and we’ll miss him, but this is really going to keep his memory going,” said Hellmich. “So now our Beautification Committee needs to take an example and we need to keep doing our things that we do to make downtown beautiful.”