Cover
Three Cheers for Our Volunteers
AS TRYON PALACE'S VOLUNTEER ARMY GROWS BY LEAPS AND BOUNDS,
ITS RECRUITS FIND THEY GET AT LEAST AS MUCH AS THEY GIVE
Bv Carl Herko
When Vicki Linley got dressed
up in 1 8rh-cenrury servant’s
garb and spent time with
schoolchildren in the Palace courtyard
during Home School Days atTryon Palace
this spring, she was there to do something
very old: teach youngsters the intricacies of
weaving with a Colonial-era hand loom.
She was also doing something very new:
Mrs. I juicy is part of a still young — but
rapidly growing — cadre of volunteers who,
with each passing day, play an ever greater
role in the operation of Tryon Palace
1 listoric Sites &, Gardens.
Vicki is a retired human resources
director for a group of veterinary hospitals.
1 ler husband Ralph, a retired elementary
school principal, is also an active volunteer.
I lie Linleysare in many ways typical of the
kind 1 if people who volunteer at Tryon
Palace Historic Sites <St Gardens. Retirees
from Michigan who began spending their
cold-weather months in New Bern in 1995,
they g< it i nvolved as volunteers because they
are history butts, because they want to
spend their retirement doing something
pn >ductive and being helpful, and — no less
important— because they get as much out
of volunteering as they put into it.
" My husband has always been involved
with small children," says Vicki. “When
he retired and we came down here, he
almost went through withdrawal. 1 le
didn’t have any children to work with."
The Linleys visited Tryon Palace one
Christmas, liked what they saw, and Ralph
got involved first as part of Tryon Palace’s
Civil War encampment and later as a
blacksmith. He found out he could do
something he enjoyed — he had done
blacksmithing in Michigan — and he could
be with children again.
The rest is, as they say, history. Vicki
soon joined her husband in the Tryon
Palace volunteer corps, helping out
wherever help was needed. One
day might find her guiding visitors
through the Palace kitchen; the
next, teaching historic weaving
techniques to youngsters visiting
during Home School Days.
Ralph, when he’s not at work in
the Tryon Palace blacksmith shop,
might be found demonstrating the
fine points of (. lolonial-era candle¬
dipping techniques for a group of
visiting children, or even lending
Vicki a hand with the weaving
demonstrations.
“If I’d known it was going to be
this much fun,” Ralph says, “I’d
have retired earlier so 1 had more
stamina.”
The range of activities
volunteers take part in
these days atTryon Palace
runs the gamut, says Volunteer
Coordinator Fran Campbell,
from reaching Gdonial skills like
the Linleys do, to gardening and
decorating for the holidays, to
archaeological research. I he
Palace even has group of four
volunteer computer gurus who
come in regularly to keep its computer
network in good working order.
LJntil recently, the Palace’s volunteer
program consisted of no more t han a tew
dozen people who came in once a year tit
help assemble Christmas decorations and
a small but dedicated handful of others
who came in more regularly to pitch in
alongside the staff gardeners. Its
importance — anil its size — has grown
immensely in recent months, though, as
Tryon Palace staff members have come to
rely more and more on volunteer assistance
to keep things running smoothly and to
“I/
I’d knmeti it was going to be this much fun," says
Ralph Linley, “ I'd have retired earlier."
keep the quality of the experience high tor
visitors in a time of severe state budget cuts.
I n spring, tor example, when the Tryon
Palace gardens were overrun by the little
leel of second-graders tak ing part in its
Young Sprouts program of nature lessons,
1 9 of its 24 Young Sprouts classes were run
by volunteers.
Today the Tryon Palace roster of
volunteers contains more than 225
names, about 70 of whom volunteer on a
regular basis.
“I’ve been so impressed, not only with
the quality of the volunteers but with their
dedication,” says Campbell. “Regardless of
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