Dedication to be in center courtyard May 3

Contacts: Mark Carroll, 325-784-5483, [email protected]

Preston Sides, 210-530-1112, [email protected]

BROWNWOOD – Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service officials will dedicate an area of the Texas 4-H Conference Center on Lake Brownwood to the center’s first director, Marshall E. Crouch.

The dedication ceremony will be at 11 a.m. May 3 at the center, located at 5600 Farm-to-Market Road 3021. A bronze plaque commemorating Crouch’s tenure will be placed in the courtyard area.

Crouch, a lifetime resident of Blanket, was center director from 1976 until his retirement in 1989. He was killed in an automobile crash in April 2007.

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An aerial view of the Texas 4-H Conference Center on Lake Brownwood as it looks today. (Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service photo)

“This will be known as the Marshall Crouch Memorial Area,” said Mark Carroll, AgriLife Extension program specialist for 4-H youth development and current center director. “The area is  frequently used by campers, and funds were donated in Marshall’s honor to make improvements, including new picnic tables and landscaping.”

Carroll noted that although people from throughout Texas have been invited to the dedication, anyone who knew Crouch or was touched by his time at the center is also welcome to attend.

“We just ask that they call the center and let us know they are coming as we will have a luncheon following the dedication and need to know how many people will be attending,” he said.

Carroll said Crouch’s perspective of the facilities being “Your 4-H Center” is still very much applicable in how they view the center and market it to others.

“He wanted people to know the center was there for everyone’s benefit and that it was an inclusive and welcoming place,” Carroll said.

Dr. Doug Steele, AgriLife Extension director, College Station, will make the official dedication of the memorial area.

“Thanks to Marshall’s original vision and dedication, the Texas 4-H center has become one of the premiere youth development facilities in the state and nation,” Steele said. “During his time at the center, tens of thousands of youth came to the center and benefited from the variety of fun, educational, character-defining and life-changing experiences he and the center staff provided. It is my honor to be involved in dedicating an area of this facility to his memory and to his legacy of positive youth development through 4-H.”

Preston Sides, a longtime friend of the Crouch family and former executive director for the Texas 4-H Foundation, said the center was the dream of the Texas 4-H Foundation board of directors.

“As the center’s first director, Marshall expanded on that dream to make the center a place for youth to engage in a variety of outdoor activities and for developing leadership skills among the volunteers who are such a vital part of the Texas 4-H organization,” Sides said.

Sides said the inception for the conference facility came in 1963, when the Brown County Water District offered the Texas 4-H Foundation a 99-year lease on a 74-acre site on a plateau on the western side of Lake Brownwood. .

“I remember we were originally looking at the site where the center was to be built on Nov. 22 of that year,” Sides said. “That was the same day President Kennedy was assassinated, so just about everyone alive at that time remembers where he or she was on that day.

“It took us a while to go forward with the plan for the center, but construction finally began in 1973 and it was finished just before the end of 1975. Marshall was offered the center director position and he started that position in 1976 when it officially opened.”

Today the center covers 78 acres and facilities include a Leadership Lodge, dormitories, a 300-seat auditorium, the Moore County Room, Recreation Room and Victoria County Room, as well as a covered patio, dining room and lakeside pavilion. It is operated by AgriLife Extension, which also oversees the activities of Texas 4-H statewide.

“These days, summers abound with youth camps while the remainder of the year the facility is open to host corporate meetings, team-building workshops, family and class reunions, and other gatherings,” Carroll said.

The center’s outdoor recreational features now include a ropes course, 40 foot x 75 foot swimming pool with three slides, an interactive water feature and adjacent bathhouse, a lakeside area for kayaking and canoeing, shooting ranges, an archery range and a basketball/volleyball/tennis court with outdoor lighting.

“Marshall Crouch’s influence on the development and direction of the 4-H center can’t be overstated,” Carroll said. “Even today, almost 30 years after he retired as center director, we still frequently hear great stories about what he did during his time as center director.”

For more information, contact the center at 325-784-5483.

    

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