Refurbished barn to officially house programs, events
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Bill Whitney shared the journey of the Charles L. Whitney Education Center with visitors during Prairie Plains Resource Institutes’s open house on Saturday.
The grass was gently swaying Saturday while barn swallows playfully swooped around the restored barn at Gjerloff Prairie. More than 100 people stood outside as they were greeted by Bill Whitney, co-founder of Prairie Plains Resource Institute to the grand opening of the Charles L. Whitney Education Center.
A vision that began in the 1980s and broke ground in 2006 as a base for their educational programs has come to fruition as the center, located west of Marquette, was opened for visitors to tour on Saturday.
“Welcome everyone and thanks so much for coming,” he said to the gathered crowd. “We’ve been looking forward to this day for a very long time. It has been a marathon; it feels good to be here.”
Whitney noted that if he were to mention every person who helped make the center possible they would be there all day but he wanted to touch on some key people.
The first person was the center’s namesake -- Charles L. Whitney, his father. He helped do all the legal work for the institute to establish it as a nonprofit organization.
“Admittedly, he had some reservations in the beginning about just what I was doing, and how was that going to make us a living,” he recalled. “He may have wanted to ask Jan if she thought it was a good idea.
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