“Papa and Mama,” The 4-H Center Managers
Inducted November 13, 2008
Terrell and Anne* Guthrie have been a fixture to Alabama 4-H youth, volunteers, and Extension professionals. Papa and Mama Guthrie, as the Alabama 4-H Center summer camp counselors called them, loved and treated the youth as if they were their own. The Guthries personally met and touched the lives of more than 10,000 youth and countless adults as they passed through the doors of the center.
Terrell Guthrie was a county Extension agent in Lamar County when he and Anne accepted a new challenge. The Guthries were the first managers assigned to the Alabama 4-H Center and moved to the property in 1979, while it was still wilderness. Opening the center in 1980 with the lodge, one dorm, a pool, and four huts moved Alabama 4-H to a hands-on, minds-on learning environment with endless possibilities.
The Guthries worked closely with the Alabama 4-H Club Foundation, Inc. to generate private funding for the expansion of facilities. The foundation, through a strategic plan and feasibility study, committed to expanding the center and 4-H. Today the motel, recreation building, a second dorm the Alabama Environmental Education Science Center continues to provide educational learning for Alabama’s youth and adults.
The Alabama 4-H Foundation Club, Inc. board named the center’s main building the Terrell and Anne Guthrie Lodge for their dedicated service managing the 4-H Center from 1979 until their retirement in 1999.
Nominated by Shannon Andress
*deceased
