Alex Lingg, longtime organizer of Wichita Garden Show, dies at 70

Alex Lingg, the dynamo who ran the Wichita Garden Show for 28 years, died this week in her sleep. She was out of town at the time, and funeral services are pending. She was 70 years old.

Hundreds of people in garden circles came to love Ms. Lingg through the years, LaLana Moore of Scenic Landscapes said.

What Ms. Lingg called “the German mother in me” caused her to make vats of chicken and noodles and chili and other food from scratch for the crews involved in putting on the show the first weekend of every March. The last year for the garden show was 2011. Another show, the Outdoor Living and Landscape Show, has now become a yearly event in its place.

“There’s such a kind of magic involved with the show,” Ms. Lingg said in a story in The Eagle in 2004 about the Wichita Garden Show. “The idea that we can create spring at the end of winter, it’s like a miracle.”

This story was originally published September 26, 2014 at 9:26 AM with the headline "Alex Lingg, longtime organizer of Wichita Garden Show, dies at 70."