When Shirley Richardson-Thomas isn't busy mentoring youth, the 83-year-old is drilling and marching or engaging in camp activities in her role as a master guide in the Seventh-day Adventist Pathfinder Club.
A sash of honours slung across her chest symbolises her completion in studies such as planets, the constellation, music, hiking skills, camp fires, bush cooking, tent pitching and striking, and computing.
Richardson-Thomas, who is from Cornwall Mountain, Westmoreland, said she has spent the past 55 years as a master guide, providing youngsters across the island with valuable lessons geared towards physical, social, mental, and spiritual development.
"I became a pathfinder in 1966 and at that time I was attending Montego Bay Seventh-day Adventist Church. There were three of us in the club, and we were studying to become master guides, but the other two fell out the programme and I continued until the studies were finished in 1967," she told the Jamaica Observer.
Richardson-Thomas started pathfinder clubs and acquired many leadership roles at several other clubs in St James, Westmoreland, Kingston, and Trelawny.
Her role as a master guide was in sync with her profession as an educator, as she obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree in Secondary Education.
"I attended the Knockpatrick Church where I served as an instructor and counsellor until my graduation in 1985. After graduating I went back to West Jamaica Conference and served at the Glendevon Church as an instructor and counsellor during my two years being unemployed," said Richardson-Thomas.
"I later obtained employment at William Knibb Memorial High School in 1987. At this time, I attended Falmouth Seventh-day Adventist Church where I became the director of the Pathfinder Club in Falmouth, which I named Wisdom Pathfinder Club," she added.
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