Joyce Wilson - Promotions and Outreach

I have known Al and Vel Corson since my first year at Platte Valley Bible College.  We had lost contact until Wes gave me Al and Vel’s  phone number.  That is when I learned of the Safari Insight Mission  and the challenge waiting for us. 

About Joyce Worcester Wilson:   I grew up on a farm northeast of Hill City, Kansas.  I am the oldest of six children and was blessed with loving, supporting Christian parents.   I graduated from Bogue High School in 1971 and went on to Platte Valley Bible College (currently Summit Christian College), which was my dad’s dream for all of us children, and graduated from there in 1975 with a Christian Education Degree. 

    From there I attended Fort Hays State University until 1979 with a teaching degree in Home Economics and a minor in Junior High English.  After substituting for a semester, I took the job as Home Economics teacher at Clyde High School which a few years later became Clifton-Clyde High School.  It was there in Clyde that I met my husband, Randy.  He had just moved back to Clyde from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to work with his brother and brother-in-law in a roofing business based here in Clyde.  Since then Randy has worked out of Herrington and currently out of Topeka, Kansas, and is home week-ends.  We have been married twenty-seven years.

     We decided that we would take in foster children after our son Ryan was born in 1984.  So from 1985 to 1992, we had from two to four foster children in addition to our own family.  Deidra  was born in 1986 and Erin in 1988.  At one time I had three small children of my own and four teenage AYS girls.  (AYS is a higher level than SRS in Kansas, children coming from girls homes.) 

     In 1990 my sister-in-law and I decided to attend Cloud County Community College and get an associate degree in Early Childhood Education.  We graduated in 1992 and set up our own non-profit child care center here in Clyde.  We ran this center until my sister-in-law decided to move on to something else and I moved my child care business into my home. 

    In 2001, I took a job at the Early Childhood Resource and Referral Agency at Cloud County Community College and worked there for three and one-half years.  This became too much with my children and their sports schedules. 

     At the same time that I was asking myself where my priorities lay,  I was asked by one of my previous parents to start up a child care business again in my home.  I have been doing this again since 2004 and loving each and every moment of it.  (Well, mostly every moment— there are a few minutes that I would question this decision.)  We have a schedule and  are busy each day with activities and learning activities.  Schedules are security for children and they learn through play, one-on-one interaction, and example.   We teach that we are accountable for our own actions and respect for others.  Children learn the most from one to five years of life.  In this respect, I am making a difference in their lives.   Whereas, in high school children, this is seldom so. 

    Currently, Randy and I and our children are members of the Clyde Christian Church where Randy serves as Elder.  Our son, Ryan lives in Salina and works at KASA Controls.   After two-years at Cloud County Community College and an Associates Degree, Deidra joined the Army Reserve as a firefighter and is currently serving her time, one week-end a month and two weeks out of the year, at Ft. Riley and will be attending KSU.   We will be getting a son-in-law, Bryan,  in June of this year before he is deployed to Iraq in July for a year.  Erin attended Sterling College last year with an academic and softball scholarship.  This fall she will be attending KSU and working at Dillions.  It will be nice to have all of our children within an hour of Clyde.