Dr. Estelle Rountree McCarthy
1980 Educator of the Year

"Let us not apologize for our ministry, or belittle it, or give it less than our best. It is a high calling: to instruct, teach, nurture, illuminate, and administrate. Let us remember that if we do boast, it is because God has taken our earthen vessels and filled them with treasure."

Dr. Estelle Rountree McCarthy is widely known for her many significant contributions to church education. She is the author of the Christian Education: Shared Approaches Adult Manual. Together with her husband, Dr. Charles R. McCarthy, she wrote The Power Picture, one of the CE:SA adult level Doing the Word study books. She also co-authored with Dr. Hugh F. Halverstadt the book Sometimes They Cry. She was chairperson of the Planning Committee for the 1978 National Event for Church Educators.

Estelle has worked in the Presbyterian Church of the United States as a campus minister and on the staff of that denomination's Board of Christian Education. At the present time she is on the staff of National Capitol Union Presbytery as Associate in Nurture.

A ruling elder and a member of Sixth Presbyterian Church, Washington, D.C., Estelle was a commissioner to the 1976 PCUS General Assembly where she served as chairperson of the Standing Committee on Church Catholic. She serves as the chairperson of the PCUS Committee for Non-ordained Certified Educators (FOR Committee) and has written the paper, "Ordination for Church Educators," which the 1980 General Assembly is being asked to send out for study and comment.

Estelle, in her work and through the use of her talents, exemplifies the best of what is meant by "educator." APCE is proud to be able to give her this recognition.