May, 2008:

Brandy Runkle took Landmark Education’s Self-Expression and Leadership program earlier this year and looked at creating a project, she wanted to do something which helped families spend more time together in today’s fast paced world. She created a project which created a family day together in a scenic outdoor setting. The Olympian, a the leading newspaper of Olympia, Washington, recently wrote a feature story about Runkle’s project, which appears below.

Play Day Focused on Family Time

By Linda Tarr – 4/6/08

Hectic schedules make quality family time hard to come by, but an Olympia woman is trying to do something about that.

Brandy Runkle is putting together “Take Your Family To Play Day” on Saturday at Priest Point Park.

“We get caught up in the day-to-day routine and don’t make enough time to appreciate the people in our lives,” she said.

The event will resemble an old-fashioned company picnic or big family gathering, with crafts such as finger painting and games such as relay races.

While kids younger than 16 will probably be most interested in the activities and games, all ages are welcome, she said.

Peter Rex, community relations director for the Olympia School District, said fun family time helps families bond.

“It’s so important to have family time together that is fun and not just always focused on the day-to-day activities of getting kids to appointments and dropping them off at school,” Rex said. “It’s these kind of enrichment activities that really form long-term memories between kids and their parents and families.”

He said Priest Point Park is a great spot for the event – and just for families to spend time.

“There are so many wonderful opportunities for discovery and hiking and looking at things on the beach and just spending quality time together with kids and family,” he said.

The event will afford Runkle family time as well. Her mother, sister and brother all have volunteered to help. She said others who want to volunteer are more than welcome.

“The more the merrier,” she said.

Though she does not have children, Runkle said she was inspired to launch the activity after attending a Landmark Education forum, a self-expression and leadership education program in Seattle. She also was inspired by her sister’s two children.

Runkle envisions having a “Take Your Family to Play Day” four times a year. “I would love for this to turn into not just a one-time event,” she said.

On Saturday, she will gather information from people who’d like to help with future play days.

“The vision is, whoever attends has so much fun and enjoys it so much, we rotate who sets it up each quarter,” she said.

“Take Your Family To Play Day” is from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at Priest Point Park in Olympia.

Thanks to the Olympian for this story.

Ten years ago, Cheryl Prater attended a family reunion where a family tree with 500 family members was presented. Ever since that time, Cheryl had always wanted to pick up that project and run with it.

When she completed Landmark Education’s Self-Expression and Leadership Program earlier this year, that wish became a reality. She enrolled about a hundred members of her family to be family tree assistants and go out and look beyond their own households, to talk to their extended families (second and third cousins, great aunts and uncles, etc.) and bring back the information to Cheryl. Out of their efforts, she has created a family tree of 2,500 member dating back to the 1800s, and during the process her family has become connected in a way it’s never been before.

Cheryl used Ancestry.com to gather more information, and she put out inquiries on genealogy message boards. Through one board she found a family member that had actually been looking for Cheryl’s part of the family 10 years ago, back when the original family tree had been created. Partly through this connection, Cheryl connected to three family segments that her family had been separated from, including one family segment from Alabama that had become estranged over the years.

At one point, Cheryl helped a young woman get in touch with her grandfather who she had never met before and through him her extended family. This caused incredible healing in the family. The woman’s mother, who had become estranged from her father, has now visited her father and is open to the possibility of continuing the newfound relationship.

The work of the family tree assistants opened up all kinds of new lines of communication in the family. The work had them talk to a grandmother or a great aunt or other senior family member that they hadn’t spoken to in a very long time. Cheryl had some of the more senior family members write some of their earliest memories down for posterity.

Other discoveries of heretofore unknown family members were made. One extraordinary find came from the will of a slaveowner who wrote down who he left his slaves to when he died, which provided the slave names to trace back the family earlier in time.

On July 18, Cheryl is having a huge family reunion in Arlington Heights, Illinois, that about 200 family members are expected to attend, where she will present the completed project. In total, she has traced the history of about 2,500 family members. She is adamant that the discoveries and the connections forged during the project are not her work; they are the work of the whole family.

“It’s not my project; it’s our project,” Cheryl insists.

Prater’s family name is Surles (It’s also sometimes spelled Serls, Sers, Serd, Sirles, Surls or Sirls). If you have any information about her family or want to be in touch with her, send an email to surlesfamily@sbcglobal.net.