Shirley Burton, a life of service remembered
Shirley Burton, retired General Conference and former ASI communication director, fell asleep in Jesus on Monday evening, August 16, 2010, at 10:05 p.m, at the age of 83.
Burton had a long history of journalism and communication in the church at all levels. Her death is a great loss to the Seventh-day Adventist family in Mid-America and around the world.
Burton had suffered a massive stroke the previous Friday at 4:45 p.m. John Treolo, Kansas-Nebraska Conference communication director, had just visited earlier that afternoon, finding her in good spirits. They had prayer together, neither of them realizing that this would be the last time they would see each other until Jesus comes.
A funeral was held for Shirley Burton on Sunday, August 22, at Piedmont Park Church in Lincoln, Nebraska. Her obituary is shared below:
SHIRLEY BURTON—GOD’S COMMUNICATOR
May 5, 1927 – August 16, 2010
“Travel our way Registration Day.” This little jingle and others for Laurelwood Academy, near Portland, Oregon, launched Shirley Burton on her 60-year career in communications for the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In those days, she was English Teacher turned student-recruiter with two fellow instructors, Curtis Perkins and Norman Skeels, of the academy. Weekends, each frequently drove a car full of students to nearby Adventist Churches. Shirley wrote and narrated the Sabbath programs that were interspersed by student vocal and instrumental numbers. Sometimes the three teachers sang a trio. “The program was full of variety,” remembers Curtis.
On Academy Day, prospective students from surrounding churches came to Laurelwood, where a progressive party that Shirley arranged became a highlight, with the various campus departments giving “gifts” to remember the school and their departments by—gifts such as a bag of candy corn from the farm, a toy doll hanger from the laundry, etc. Shirley’s effective communication skills contributed largely to the record that Laurelwood Academy held in those days for the highest number of students among Adventist boarding academies: 402 students one year, according to Curtis Perkins, the registrar at that time
It didn’t take long for Oregon Conference president, H. L. Rudy, to spot Shirley’s talents. She’d finished a Master’s Degree in Communication from Southern Oregon College in 1961. While taking a summer public relations class at Portland State—on a fellowship provided by the Wall Street Journal, President Rudy contacted her. It was a day that Shirley remembered well. She told me that on that day she got high marks making a promotional presentation demonstrating her use of curios to market Laurelwood Academy; and President Rudy called to ask her to become Public Relations Director for the Portland Adventist Hospital.
“While we talked on the phone,” Shirley said, “President Rudy suddenly exclaimed that instead of going to the Portland Adventist Hospital, he wanted me to come to the Oregon Conference Office saying, ‘the conference needs your skills and talents more than the hospital does.’” So in June of l963, Shirley’s career path led her to become the Public Relations Director for the Oregon Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.
One unusual job assignment while she was serving as Public Relations Director. The Young Democrats and Young Republicans of Washington State had embarked on a mission to expunge outdated Sunday Laws from the books during the upcoming election—laws such as the illegality of shaving a patient in the hospital on Sunday. A mother of one of the members knew of the position Adventists hold against Sunday Laws. She suggested her son contact the Adventist church and ask for help. The inquiry came to Elder Rudy. After some discussion, it was agreed that Shirley would go to Seattle, live in a motel for three months, and work with the Young Democrats and Young Republicans to inform the public of these anti-religious liberty laws and why they should be removed from the books.
“Sometimes I awakened in the middle of the night with an idea. I had the key to the office nearby,” she said, “so I'd drive over as soon as it was light to write a story.”
“Lem Howell, President of Young Democrats, would call and suggest, ‘How would it be if you'd write a story on such and such?’” “Then I’d read to him what I'd written during the night,” Shirley recalled, and the thoughts would be similar to the ones he had just shared.”
“I wish we had the intelligence network you Adventists have,” Lem would exclaim. “I told him I prayed about what I was doing and that God inspired me what to write.” The campaign she helped with culminated in success at the polls.
Born at the Lincoln General Hospital on May 5, 1927, Shirley Ann Burton grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. Her first six grades she attended a local public elementary school. For seventh grade, Shirley enrolled in a small Seventh-day Adventist Church School taught in the basement of her family’s home church. Graduating in 1949, from Union College, with double majors in English and Speech and an Education minor, Shirley left Nebraska for her first teaching position at Oak Park Academy in Nevada, Iowa. She taught English, Speech, and Writing as well as being girls’ Dean. She moved west in 1955, first to Milo Academy then to Laurelwood Academy, where she taught until 1963.
“I enjoyed what I was doing in the Oregon Conference and I never wanted to leave the Northwest,” she said about her years as Director of Public Relations from 1963 to 1969. However, when President W. J. Blacker of the Pacific Union Conference, requested Shirley to become Public Relations and Radio-television Secretary for the Union, she moved in 1969, to Southern California, where, in her words, “You had to look at the air you breathed.”
It was about this time that the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists granted both missionary and commissioned minister credentials to Shirley Burton, recognizing the talents she had been using for the Lord for years. These credentials she held for the rest of her life. Taking such honors seriously, she spoke many times through the years to a wide variety of audiences in numerous places. Often she spoke for weekend services, always lifting up her Savior and best friend, Jesus, and bringing her hearers the truths she’d found in her Bible.
As Shirley Burton prepared to assume her new responsibilities in California, at the Union office, President Blacker wrote to the constituency, “Miss Burton also brings a deep spiritual conviction in the Advent message. As Miss Burton comes to the church headquarters in Glendale, and as she moves out into the field to various meetings and activities, we feel sure that our members and workers will welcome her and join with us in praying that God will crown her efforts to communicate the ‘Good News’ with much success.”
Included in Shirley’s new work assignment was the responsibility of being editor of the Pacific Union Recorder, the official Union publication. Don Christensen, Financial Consultant for Mountain View College in the Philippines during those years, recalled sending several articles to Shirley that she published in the Recorder. She created needed mission awareness and financial support to the college’s local mission projects in Mindanao as a result of contributions from church members in the Pacific Union Conference who read the stories.
Sixteen years later, in 1985, Shirley accepted the invitation to be Associate Communications Director—News Director for the African Continent, at the General Conference Headquarters of Seventh-day Adventists in Silver Springs, Maryland.
Her new position required extensive traveling, first to the continent of Africa and later around the globe. She also journeyed to Asia, Australia, Europe, South America and throughout North America visiting more than thirty countries during the nine years she served in the Communication Department, first as an associate and then as Director of Communications for the world Church.
She said her biggest challenge while working with the African countries came in the form of (and I quote) “being asked by the President of the Republic of Kenya to write his speech welcoming the Seventh-day Adventist Church officials to Nairobi, Kenya for Annual Council meetings October 4-11, 1988.”
Additionally, the East African Division asked her to write their Evening Program Presentation at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre. “I helped them learn how to write,” she said. “I taught them how to make contact with the government and to get their news to be accepted—to be able to print it.”
A friend said, “People came to Shirley because they trusted her and they knew that whatever she did would be excellent.”
During the last two years that she was Communications Director of the General Conference, Shirley arranged with Three Angeles Broadcasting Network, (3ABN), a self-supporting, full-time television ministry, to produce a program she called Seventh-day Adventist World Report. Bobby Davis, a member of the production team, described how she sat the group down and explained her concept of how she wanted the program to go. Her grasp of television technology and production was remarkable.
“She was always so interested in the Lord's work,” Ted N. C. Wilson, newly-elected President of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists said, “and how to communicate the love of Christ to the public and to the church.”
“She was a pioneer in using television to inform and inspire church members” said production crewman Bobby Davis, “telling them what was happening—as she said, “in your church.” Doug Garcia, Lanny Allen, and Bobby Davis, 3ABN's production men whom she called “her boys” and who kept in touch with her for years afterward, reminisced how she won the crew’s hearts while they created graphics and adapted video clips of every imaginable format from every corner of the world for the Seventh-day Adventist World Report show.
“Whenever Shirley would come, she would bring goodies, treats and things—a big bag of popcorn. She knew the way to our hearts. She knew how to bond with the crew. We looked forward to her visits. I think everyone liked Shirley,” Doug said.
Remembering his experience co-hosting Seventh-day Adventist World Report, Mike Ryan, one of the General Vice-Presidents of the General Conference, said, “She was very experienced and I was new. One day, after I had bungled several takes, she said with the patience of a mother, ‘I suppose you have read the material several times, however, I recognize it’s not very natural talking to a camera. It would be well for you to know early on that a camera does not bite and more importantly, it will never argue with you.’”
“She was a great blessing to God's worldwide church having served in the area of communications for many years culminating with her service as the General Conference Communication Department director,” added Ted Wilson.
Retirement from the General Conference in l994 only meant a work shift. Adventist-laymen's Services and Industries asked her to be Director of Communications for ASI and Editor for the ASI Magazine. Dwight Hilderbrandt, Secretary/Treasurer at the time, recounts one of Shirley's projects: a thirteen-episode ASI video magazine series, highlighting ASI members and their market place ministries. This series with a totally new concept, aired on 3ABN television for several seasons. “She was the driving force—produced it, wrote the scripts, oversaw production—everything. Shirley earned the respect of all our ASI members,” Dwight said, “She was so easy to work with—such a multi-talented person.”
Lanny Allen and his company, Imagination on Tap, shot and edited the project. In the end they decided to submit an episode for a Telly Award in the “Low-Budget” category. The “Low-Budget” category meant a creative, polished production achieved with a limited budget, a more difficult goal to achieve than one with an unlimited budget. Shirley spoke with justifiable pride of the four-and-a-half pound bronze, winged statuette on top of her bookshelf symbolizing creative superiority, by an independent panel of judges for excellence, “honoring the very best local, regional, and cable television commercials and programs, as well as the finest video and film productions, and work created for the web.”
When Shirley re-retired from ASI and 3ABN in 2002, Don Christensen, then President of Weimar Institute of Health and Education, asked her to share her expertise as Communications Director there. So she volunteered again.
Nothing was too much trouble. She assisted wherever she was needed. If somebody needed mashed potatoes served, she served them. She valued other people’s insights and offered her insight back to them when they asked.
Shirley not only worked as Communications Director at Weimar; on the week-ends she’d assist the kitchen team in the Newstart™ Dining Room, restocking napkins and silverware, vacuuming the floor if need be, then helping Valerie Perkins greet and visit with Newstart™ guests.
A strong thread of unselfish love made a distinctive pattern in the fabric of Shirley’s life. Although Shirley never married, she mothered a countless family of students, friends, acquaintances, co-workers, anyone who needed mothering. She had a heart for them all. Up until her final year of life, at age 83, she traveled and spoke; to Portland, Oregon, last January for a 50th class reunion, invited by former students; and to the Quiet Hour Board in April, of which she was a member for 35 years.
“We were blessed to have Shirley on our board,” said Carol Weaver, Quiet Hour Board Recording Secretary. “She did a lot, traveling to various venues as our ministry representative.” When she came for yearly board meeting, Shirley's habit was to spend a couple of days individually visiting
with each employee and praying with them. Sometimes she gave the devotional for Board Meeting. More often Shirley had a morning meditation for the entire Quiet Hour staff.
Last April she gave a short inspirational talk and pulled out several newspaper clippings depicting startling, horrific world events. Shirley urged the group to take note of these signs and get ready, for Jesus would soon return.
“She would pray with you on a moment’s notice. It’s the way she lived her life,” said good friend, Sharon Robberson, “She had great knowledge from her life experiences. Her suggestions and ideas were always worth knowing.”
I think Sharon Robberson spoke for all of us when she said, “I felt her love through and through and have wonderfully fond memories.”
Seeing her in February at the Board Meeting of Christian Record Services for the Blind of which she was a member, Ted N. C. Wilson, Chairman of the Board said, “She still had a wonderful smile and attitude about life. Shirley was a precious lady and will be missed by so many of us who considered ourselves to be part of her family.”
So to her immediate family: Mary, her special sister-in-law, the wife of Shirley’s beloved, deceased brother, Monte; and to Shirley's nephew, Marcus and his wife, Rachel; and to Shirley’s niece Karen, and husband, Brady and their children, Derek, and Kailey; we say THANK YOU! Thank you, for sharing Shirley with us. Thank you, for graciously allowing us to be part of Shirley Burton’s family—God’s communicator of love.