A career blooms from the ground up By MICHAEL SCHUMAN © St.
Petersburg Times, published February 11, 2001 George Washington
Carver. For many of us, the name triggers vague memories of
fourth-grade history reports and social studies. Long before
there was Black History Month, Carver stood out as one of the
most famous and most appreciated African-Americans in U.S.
history. But most of those memories probably have become a bit
faded. What was it that Carver did with peanuts? Surely it took
more than peanuts to make his a household name. The answers can
be found at the site of Carver's birthplace, today the George
Washington Carver National Monument, in the town of Diamond, Mo.
Diamond is in southwestern Missouri, known among locals as the
land where the Ozarks meet the prairie. Here -- it is near the
place where the Show Me State borders Kansas and Oklahoma --
visitors can experiment in a discovery lab, walk a nature trail
past landmarks that had weighty influence on Carver's early
years, screen a selection of