This month our Coalition Spotlight is on Terri Dutton-Blanchett. She represents the Ministerial Association sector of our board. This is what Terri had to say: The first 12 years of my life I grew up here in the NVN area. My family lived in Vale and my grandparents, Ray and Dorthey Dutton, owned and ran Dutton Lumber Company for 45 years. I attended first grade at the Vale school. When I was 7 my dad took over the Newell airport and had a flying service and taught most of the ranchers in the area how to fly. At that time we moved to Newell and I attended second and third grade at the Newell school. Mrs. Schipke was my teacher for both years. My family attended church at the Newell Assembly of God and were very active in the ministry there. This is the church that I am now pastoring, AKA Dakota Life Christian Center.
I have been in ministry for over 45 years. I graduated from Rhema Bible Institute in Broken Arrow, OK. The Call of God on my life has taken me to many places and I have had the opportunity to work and minister in multiple facets of ministry. I have worked as a crusade director, media coordinator, office manager, bookkeeper, Bible college administrator, Bible college teacher, Associate pastor, traveling teacher in church governments, worship leader, coordinator and leader of missions teams to name a few. I have lived in Ft. Lauderdale, FL., Tulsa, Ok., Bangor, ME., Florence, AL., and Bristol, RI.
Now I have returned to my roots here in Vale and Newell, SD. I pastor Dakota Life Christian Center, oversee the NVN Food pantry, and involved in many community projects.
There are three core values that I try to govern my life by: #1. Try to be the answer and not the problem. #2 Celebrate the strengths in others and overlook their weaknesses. #3. Just be kind.
We are blessed to have Terri on our board and in our community. She helps with two different food distributions each month through the NVN Food Pantry along with offering snacks to the school for students to enjoy throughout the day and fills backpacks weekly with Food to send home with families who sign up for them Terri is the first to say yes when it comes to helping the community out with programs and projects. Check out these Facebook pages to learn more about projects that Terri is part of: Dakota Life Christian Center of South Dakota and NVN Food Pantry.
