Wright County Children’s Home welcomes new assistant administrator

The Wright County Children’s Home of Norwood would like to introduce the new Assistant Director, Kathy Trammell.
Kathy and her husband, Ronny, live in Drury and have both been involved in childcare in some capacity since 1989.
Kathy says she received a calling from God to work with special children. She and her husband began this journey in 1989 when they moved their family of four to Waxahachie, Texas to become Family Teachers at the Presbyterian Children’s Home (PCH). While living and working at PCH, for the four years there, she and her husband worked with and helped over 100 children and many of their families to either be reunited or to learn how to start the process of rebuilding those relationships.
Their home at PCH was an eight-bed home, housing four boys and four girls ages from 6-18. This was a family-style home with Kathy and Ronny being the stand in parents for these eight children. Kathy said she must admit, when she first moved into the group home, her thought was, “all these kids are just going to love us and we will be just one big happy family.”
Then the training was over and the kids showed up. “I was wrong,” said Kathy. She said Ronny and she were indoctrinated very quickly but soon seemed to get the swing of it and that is when they knew they were where they were supposed to be. 
While at PCH, Ronny and Kathy worked together with their Assistant Family Teacher to build a solid program of turning kids around and providing much needed assistance to the parents as well.
It was during those years that the couple received several prestigious awards. The most special of those awards was the Lonnie and Elaine Phillips Award. Lonnie and Elaine Phillips were the very first Family Teachers. They worked together to create and build this program that many other children’s homes have adopted. By this time, the family teacher model had spread overseas, making it internationally known and used. Ronny and Kathy received this award and were sent to the Teaching Family Association Conference which was held in New Jersey that year. Each year all the sites around the globe would send in entries for their special couples to be voted on by the committee to become that year’s Family Teachers of the Year.
Kathy remembers how awesome it was to win this great honor, but how humbling it was to stand in front of Elaine Phillips (Lonnie had passed away) and the others who worked so hard to develop the program that ultimately put them in this position. Kathy had been serving on several executive boards within the Teaching Family Association and was blessed to have met many of the founders of this organization.
The Teaching Family Association committees that Kathy served on for several years, served the Trammells well by the contacts and friendships that were formed. One of those contacts was a man named Ted Blevins. Ted was the president of the Lena Pope Home, in Fort Worth, Texas.
He and the Trammells developed a great friendship and finally, towards the end of her term on the executive committee, Ted offered the Trammells a position at Lena Pope Home (LPH) running one of his homes in Fort Worth. After prayer and lots of discussions, the Trammell family of four moved from Waxahachie, Texas to the Lena Pope Home in Fort Woth, Texas and into the “Gordon” home.
The Gordon family had donated money for this home. This facility was what Texas called a level 5 placement.
The kids there were drug dealers, rapist, and a few had killed someone. The other less violent kids were well versed in drugs, gangs, and would not back down from anything.
The first three months, Ronny and their assistant, Cliff Grider, were “on- run” trying to find the girls that took off the night before the Trammell’s moved into the Gordon home. Finally, the girls got tired of Ronny and Cliff following them, so they gave up and came home. Kathy remembers telling God she was sure they didn’t hear him correctly and had made a huge mistake coming to Lena Pope. Then she prayed that God would move them. He moved them, but not away from LPH. Instead, He moved them in their hearts.
He began to help them see the worth in these kids they had been dealing with. The same worth that God had for them as His children. God reminded them that he loved them too.
Lots of kids and family passed through the doors of their home and the LPH had moved them around in various positions throughout their time there, but after 18 years, it was time for the Trammells to go back home and get ready for their next phase of life. During the time the Trammells worked at LPH, the staff Psychologist arranged for Kathy to get her teaching certification in Texas and while still in the group home, she became the third teacher in Crowley Middle School for the behavior improvement class. They also placed a team of other behaviorists in the classroom and continued to use the Teaching Family model of discipline and life change. So, when Kathy and Ronny left the LPH, she remained a teacher but moved closer to their retirement home on Lake Texoma.
Once again, Kathy’s qualifications landed her the position in the alternative classes where she was allowed to train several assistant teachers and develop a solid behavior improvement program for kids who struggled with school. Ronny became the van driver and would pick up kids throughout the district and bring them to Kathy’s class and then he would drive to the next town where he was a behaviorist in another behavioral classroom.
Kathy and Ronny relocated again in 2009 to Drury, Missouri where they purchased land and a home to retire and run cattle. Once in Missouri, Kathy has worked as a substitute at the Christian Academy School, Ozarks Behavioral Health as Case Manager for Adult Behavioral Health and Teaching in the special needs and behavioral classes in Mountain Grove School District. It was during her last year (before retirement, again) that they felt the call to move to Father Flanagan’s Boys Town in Boys Town, Neb. Their oldest daughter, Rachelle, her husband, Colby Jacobs, their two daughters, Harper and Finley, as well as their son, Levi, had lived at Father Flanagan’s Boys Home for about seven years when Ronny and Kathy moved there in May 2022.
At Boys Town, they served as Family Teachers in a level 1 home. This home was for girls who needed a little more teaching, love, and patience than others that were coming to Boys Town. They stayed at Boys Town until finally deciding it was time to move back home due to Ronny’s health issues. So, they officially retired again in July of 2025. 
They took a very long vacation and settled into their home once again before Kathy decided to take the position at Wright County Children’s Home in Norwood.
She brings experience in behavior improvement, conflict resolution, parent training skills and much more. She also has her Master’s degree in the field of Autism.