Lynn and Neil Sperry are McKinney community champions who have planted seeds that make dreams become reality. Together they worked to create Serenity High in McKinney, the nation’s only public recovery high school. Eight years old, Serenity has given students in recovery from alcohol and other drugs the opportunity to earn diplomas in a safe, supportive environment. It has served students from 25 school districts. The Sperrys also spent 12 years as board members of Avenues Counseling Center, a nonprofit community organization that provides affordable substance abuse treatment. Mr. Sperry also serves as president of the board of the Denton State School.

They are founding members of The Crape Myrtle Trails of McKinney Foundation, a nonprofit organization that is overseeing the planting of tens of thousands of crape myrtles of all known varieties in medians, parks, schoolyards and other public areas of McKinney. Mr. Sperry is president of its board.

It was Mrs. Sperry’s vision that led to the founding of the McKinney Education Foundation (MEF), an extraordinarily successful endowment fund that provides scholarships as well as classroom and teacher grants. All proceeds from Mr. Sperry’s handmade pen sales as well as all of his public appearance fees are donated to MEF in recognition of Lynn’s work.

Mr. Sperry is a native of College Station, but his degrees in horticulture are both from The Ohio State University.

He has hosted his highly rated weekend radio program on KRLD since 1980. He publishes GARDENS Magazine and writes for 20 Texas newspapers. He publishes an annual Texas Gardening Calendar and is author of the best-selling Neil Sperry’s Complete Guide to Texas Gardening. He was named Garden Communicator of the Year by the American Association of Nurserymen, and he is in the Texas Radio Hall of Fame.

Mrs. Sperry has been described as one of McKinney’s greatest assets. A former educator with a degree in music education from Ohio State, she has served 24 years on the McKinney ISD board. Her contributions to the district have focused on a stronger gifted and talented program, upgrading of older school facilities and an expanded fine arts curriculum. She recently concluded 12 years of service on the board of the Texas Association of School Boards. In that capacity she represented 82 school districts in Austin.

Mr. and Mrs. Sperry were named McKinney Volunteers of the Year in 1997 and have each been honored as the city’s Citizen of the Year, Neil in 2003 and Lynn in 2006.

The Sperrys are the parents of three children and grandparents of five. Their passion for cultivating bountiful futures for young people — other people’s children as well as their own — has allowed countless lives to blossom.