By Barry Porterfield
Pauls Valley Daily Democrat
Pauls Valley — It’s a very unique thing when a native of Australia also gets to call Pauls Valley home.
For Margaret Anning Macaulay that’s exactly the case since she spent a year here as a teenager in the 1960s as Pauls Valley’s first ever Rotary exchange student.
These days Marg and her husband John are making a brief but memorable stop in Pauls Valley visiting with a few old friends and making some new ones along the way.
“I came back to visit my host family. I had to come see Pauls Valley, particularly Ruth Anne. Ruth Anne was my American sister,” Marg said referring to the Reids and Ruth Anne Colley.
“This is just a visit with family.”
Marg offered the comments during a visit that she and her husband, a Rotary fellow, were making to Pauls Valley and other parts of the U.S. set to end this week.
It’s been more than four years but a stop here was essential for Marg since Pauls Valley is where she got her introduction to America and the culture here during an extended stay as a teen in the mid ‘60s.
It came about when the Rotary clubs in both her Australian hometown and here in Pauls Valley were exploring the idea of getting involved with the student exchange program. It turned out the timing was perfect.
“They wanted to get involved in the exchange program in the early days,” Marg said about her Rotary program back home.
“I was the first student to be chosen there and the first student the Rotary Club here accepted,” she said.
“I ended up in little old Pauls Valley. I was 16 when I came here as a Rotary exchange student.”
During her one year stay Marg was a student in one of the first classes to be housed in Pauls Valley’s new high school.
“It feels very comfortable coming back. Pauls Valley has changed a lot in many ways,” she said.
“It’s just a happy story. There are great memories for me here. I feel I know the real America because of my time in Pauls Valley.”
The visit was also a special one for Ruth Anne who was not only right in the middle of Marg’s time here all those years ago but later returned the favor and went to Australia as an exchange student herself.
During that visit Ruth Anne stayed with Marg’s family. Many years later Ruth Anne’s own daughter did the very same thing.
“She stayed with us and I stayed with her,” she said.
Ruth Anne also is quick to praise the very Rotary program that got her and Marg together in the first place.
“It’s a great program that we want to promote. It makes great friendships, lifetime friendships,” Ruth Anne said.
“She’s special to us because she’s our first exchange student,” she said of Marg. “She’s a great ambassador for the program.”
During the visit Marg also made a trip to Weatherford to see Ken and Phyllis Reid. Along with the Reeds, Marg was also hosted by the Joe Deacon family during her time here as an exchange student.
Marg added she and her husband now have three married children and three grandchildren.
