Bench Dedication Planned in Tech Terrace Park on Tuesday at 6:00 PM

A bench honoring the efforts of Lee and Marjorie Manning will be unveiled on Tuesday at 6:00 in Tech Terrace Park near 23rd and Flint. 

From the Lubbock AJ article by Ray Westbrook:

A bench in Tech Terrace Park designed to commemorate the work of Lee and Marjorie Manning in their neighborhood, will be unveiled at 6 p.m. Tuesday at 24th Street and Flint Avenue.



The Tech Terace-UNIT Neighborhood Association, initiated in 1974 by Mary and Darrell Vines, has represented efforts to keep the area focused on its traditional single-family homes.


The UNIT represents the neighborhood bounded by University Avenue, 19th Street, Indiana Avenue and 34th Street.


Marjorie Manning and her husband, the late Lee Manning, became involved in the neighborhood's leadership in the 1980s, according to Mary Vines.


"Marjorie carried the weight of it for years, and was the go-to-person for the neighborhood association. So, it's very fitting that she should be honored this way."


Lauren Prather, who led efforts to build the commemorative bench in honor of the Mannings, said that Marjorie had served as president of the association for many years. "There wasn't a meeting anywhere or a zone case, but that she was there."


Cyd Seideman, who was treasurer or an officer in the association for 25 years, referred to the perseverance of the Mannings as the rationale for the bench addition to the park.


Citing the work of Marjorie Manning in particular, she said, "Through her firm gentility" she was able to represent the neighborhood as a "consistent voice of single-family residential integrity."


Seideman added, "Marjorie took on the garden at 23rd Street and Flint Avenue. For 20 years she was the one who weeded it, watered it, cared for it. It's kind of an entry point for the neighborhood."


Prather, who grew up in the neighborhood, has seen it change over the years.


"I got to watch the transition of this neighborhood. In the 1950s and most of the 1960s, it was all single-family homes with kids everywhere. Well it started changing in the 1970s, mainly because people left or died. By the early 1980s, it really started to transition, but one thing was unique - some of the younger families were coming back in and buying some of the older houses."


The neighborhood association was able to keep apartment complexes from being built near Texas Tech, and to retain most of the area in its traditional form.


Prather said the bench that neighbors and friends paid for, and that will belong to the Parks and Recreation Department, was placed in a location near the Manning home.


"The idea was to put it right across the street from her home, so she could walk over and sit and look at her park and her garden - that was our goal."


To comment on this story:

ray.westbrook@lubbockonline.com • 766-8711
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