The SNA Board of Directors honors individuals that have served this association and the nursery industry in various capacities throughout the years and have made outstanding contributions during their active participation in the Southern Nursery Association with honorary membership awards. This year, one deserving industry member has been selected to receive an SNA Honorary Member Award. He has, no doubt, made outstanding contributions to the association and the industry during his participation in the Southern Nursery Association.
This year’s recipient of the SNA Honorary Member Award is Jimmy Driver, Jimmy Driver Plant Brokerage & Consulting, McMinnville, TN. Jimmy Driver served as President of Middle Tennessee Nursery (1974 – 1975); President of the Tennessee Nursery Association (1984 – 1985); Member of the Board of Governors of the American Nursery Association (1990 – 1993). He was honored as Tennessee Wholesale Nurseryman of the Year in 1992. He has served on various committees of state, regional and national associations. Jim, along with Otis Floyd, led the delegation to facilitate the legislative and funding activities to move the nursery research center to McMinnville – the Otis Floyd Nursery Crop Research Station. Jim also served on the legislative committee of the American Nursery Association. He attended conferences in Washington, DC at the Capitol and the White House.
Mr. Driver joined the US Navy at the age of 17 in 1957. He began
his nursery experience by selling trees on the side while working other
jobs. Living in Chattanooga, and close to McMinnville, he would take
orders and sell trees during the week to neighbors and fellow employees at his
other jobs. After several years, he and his family moved back to
Smithville. Because there were no nurseries who would sell to the public,
Jim started a retail center in the heart of the wholesale nursery industry
named Cumberland Nursery in Smithville. From a meager beginning in 1970, the
nursery grew to a 150-acre operation with twenty employees, Mr. Driver sold
wholesale as well as retail. He was one of the first to grow trees in
containers in many sizes. This maintained the operation year around
regardless of weather conditions.
Raised primarily by his grandparents on a small farm in DeKalb County
Tennessee, everything revolved around producing food in order to keep the
family going. Jim looks at this time of working with his hands in the dirt as
the beginning of his love of farming and working with the ground.
In 1995, Jim embarked on a new adventure. He began a new business, Jimmy Driver
Plant Brokerage & Consulting. Representing nurseries across several
states, he still works full time to this day. He currently lives in
McMinnville, TN where the trees are!
Jim would like to remember two individuals who were instrumental
in his success in the nursery industry:
Tommy Henegar and Edward S. Porter, both loved the SNA.
