Delegate Nancy Guthrie, 30th District

Don and Beverly Peoples had four children – Jimmy, Betsy, Nancy and Diane. Because they moved so often the children were their own best friends. Their father taught them the love of scientific breakthroughs and new inventions. Their mother taught them a love of art, education, theater and music. She required each of the kids to take up a musical instrument. Jimmy chose the oboe, Betsy the cello, and Nancy the flute while Mrs. Peoples and Diane filled in at piano. Among them, the Peoples children and their mother had a pretty passable quartet. Although, Nancy is the first to admit they were truly a tribe best characterized as “young, gifted and goofy”.

Beverly Peoples instilled in the children a deep and abiding faith. Beverly and Don taught the children to recoil at bigotry and racism, acknowledged hard work with fair and just treatment, revered their religious faith and placed great value on life-long learning. Nancy was brought up Lutheran. The family counted among their closest friends, the Minister, his wife and their four children. The kids all went to bible school, and church camp. Each summer the families camped together throughout the United States .

Nancy served as an acolyte, was the junior choir soloist and studied catechism before taking her first communion. As a Lutheran, Nancy developed an early and comical understanding of what it means to be a Lutheran Church basement lady with casserole portfolio, long before it was acceptable and fashionable to poke fun at Lutherans.

Like most friends her age, Nancy was a Brownie and a Girl Scout. In elementary school she won national recognition for a slogan she created for Smokey Bear to use in a U.S. Forest Service fire prevention campaign. Much later, Nancy briefly worked for the U.S. Forest Service but returned to West Virginia – the only real home she'd ever known. Like her brother and two sisters, after college they each planted roots in three different states and none of them ever moved again.

In the late 1960's Donald and Beverly divorced after 25 years of marriage. The split was bruising and is probably responsible for the profound understanding Nancy carries with her today about how important it is to be consistent in both words and deeds. As Nancy characterizes that bruising breakup, “my father had many fine qualities but fidelity was not among them”.

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