Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan recently appointed Lorraine Purnell-Ayres of Snow Hill to the board of trustees of Wor-Wic Community College.
Purnell-Ayres is a retiree who has worked in a variety of positions in the Snow Hill and Salisbury areas for the past 30 years. She was a parole and probation agent with the Maryland Department of Public Safety and an income maintenan
ce caseworker for the Maryland Department of Social Services. She also worked as a youth counselor and director of the Maryland Energy Assistance Program at SHORE UP! Inc. Purnell-Ayres also worked in the private sector as a restaurant owner/operator and financial analyst. After retirement, she was a part-time exercise science faculty member at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES).
She is a past president of the Worcester County branch of the NAACP, a founder of Oasis Ministries, now Haven House, an after-school tutorial program housed at Snow Hill Elementary School, and a former member of the Board of Ordained Ministry for the Peninsula-Delaware Conference of the United Methodist Church. She also served as a youth Bible study coordinator and instructor at Ebenezer United Methodist Church and Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, and as a teen instructor for the Snow Hill Vacation Bible School.
Purnell-Ayres is a graduate of Snow Hill High School. She has a bachelor’s degree in exercise science from UMES and a master’s degree in education with a concentration in adaptive physical education from Wayne State University in Detroit, Mich.
Purnell-Ayres has two grown children and three grandsons.
