Occoneechee State Park Recognizes VMN Volunteer Terri Mewborn

May 9, 2022

VMN volunteer Terri Mewborn. Terri started with the VMN program in the Merrimac Farm Chapter and has since led efforts to launch the new Southern Piedmont Chapter. Photo by Virginia State Parks.

—Contributed by Dorie Stolley, Director of the Office of Community Engagement and Volunteerism, Virginia State Parks

Each year Virginia State Parks solicits nominations for Volunteer of the Year from its 41 parks. Only one person is selected for the award – a difficult task because all of the nominees are dedicated and exemplary volunteers who are much appreciated by the staff of the park at which they serve. One such exceptional nominee for the 2021 award was Terri Mewborn, who was nominated by then Chief Ranger Alex Qualls of Occoneechee State Park. I wasn’t surprised to receive the nomination, because I, myself, had had the pleasure of experiencing Terri in action at the park in 2021.

Person showing a large green fruit to a group of adults and children

Terri introducing the group to an Osage orange. Photo by Virginia State Parks.

On a crisp November morning I had joined Terri and seventeen park visitors on her Plantation Trail Guided Walk at Occoneechee State Park. Leading us along a leafy path that wound around ruins, overgrown gardens, cemeteries and a stream, she related the human and natural history of the land. Terri began with the original inhabitants of the area, the Occoneechee Indians and continued through the arrival of the first Europeans and the development of the property into a plantation where enslaved people worked to farm the land and run the household. Terri invited us to use all of our senses to experience the natural world and our imagination to experience what life on the land was like for its inhabitants. She had the entire group from toddlers to grandparents engaged and interested because of her knowledge, enthusiasm and ability to relate the topics to what is relevant to visitors.

notebooks labeled with names of interpretive programs and lined up on a shelf

The Interpretive Program Plans that Terri wrote are available to other interpreters, both staff and volunteers, at Occoneechee State Park. Photo by Virginia State Parks.

Terri’s expertise at delivering interpretive programs is fairly new. She retired in 2017 from a government job in Washington, D.C. and immediately attended VMN basic training. Shortly thereafter, she moved to Clarksville having fallen in love with the area during several trips in earlier years. Not one to stay still, Terri began volunteering at Occoneechee State Park in 2019, filling a void left by the departure of a park interpreter. For two years, Terri led the vast majority of the programs offered by the park. She honed her interpretive skills by participating in a state parks training – the “spring interpretive workshop,” which is held on an annual basis. This training is available to Virginia Master Naturalist volunteers leading park interpretive programs who are nominated by park staff, generally the Chief Ranger of Visitor Experience.

To ensure that others can follow in her footsteps, Terri wrote interpretive program plans (IPPs) for all of her interpretive programs, putting them neatly into binders for easy use at the park. The programs cover the spectrum of nature and history topics relevant to the park and many parks and go beyond presenting facts to encourage emotional, intellectual, physical and spiritual connection to the natural environment and historical resources of the park.

Terri Mewborn leading a first day hike at Occoneechee State Park on January 1, 2022. Photo by Virginia State Parks.

Not only has Terri enhanced the interpretive offerings of Occoneechee State Park, she helped maintain 20 miles of trails, recruited other community members for stewardship projects, such as shoreline clean ups, and volunteered at nearby Staunton River State Park, on Army Corps of Engineers holdings, and at other protected natural areas.

Terri’s boundless enthusiasm for nature and natural areas led her to launch the Southside Online Naturalist Group (SONG) to share images and stories of Southside Virginia natural resources, native wildlife (including identification requests), ecology, conservation, citizen science, and related topics. Following that, along with others on the coordinating committee, Terri helped initiate the Southern Piedmont Chapter of the Virginia Master Naturalists in 2021. Their first training is underway presently and will provide more volunteers to help enhance the work of conservation organizatio
ns.

For all of these reasons, Terri was nominated as Volunteer of the Year for Virginia State Parks and her work shines as an example to others desiring to make a positive impact on the natural world, including its human inhabitants.