Tanker Groundbreaking Flowers Get New Life

By Tiffany Craig Investigative Reporter

Northrop Grumman and EADS bought $8000 worth of flowers for the groundbreaking. Now what? Tanker Groundbreaking Flowers Get New Life

Published: Thu, June 26, 2008 - 6:59 pm Last Updated: Thu, June 26, 2008 - 7:19 pm

Tiffany Craig

Northrop Grumman and EADS had big plans for the groundbreaking scheduled for this Saturday at Brookley.

Digging into the ground for the 600 million dollar facility was going to happen in style.

A huge tent would house fine dining and be surrounded with 8-thousand dollars worth of flowers.

Then, the Government Accountability Office sided with Boeing and asked for a re-bid on the contract.

Stop the presses. Now what?

Northrop and EADS started canceling plans and orders but they were left with 1-thousand dollars worth of Heliconia tropical flowers. The giant six-foot plants were ordered from South America and sending them back wasn't an option.

LeNae Denson with Cleveland Florist was housing the flowers and helped the team come up with a plan.

Instead of sending the tropical paradise to Brookley, the flowers took a longer journey to Biloxi, Mississippi and into the campus of the Veterans Hospital.

Denson says this unusual situation worked out well. "We don't normally use these except for big celebrations and the groundbreaking we were gonna have in Mobile was gonna be a grand celebration. So, some good is gonna come out of what our celebration was gonna be! We're gonna pass it on down to Biloxi so we're gonna spread the goodwill."

Hospital officials want to thank the tanker team for thinking of them and have already starting putting out the flowers.

Denson says the tropical flowers should last through the July 4th weekend!