3 decades later, Mark Shirley still finds joy in teaching 4-H’ers about La. marshes

Mark Shirley, a coastal specialist with the LSU AgCenter and Louisiana Sea Grant, smiles while showing wings of various duck species to 4-H members participating in an Advanced Marsh Maneuvers camp in December. Photo by Hilton Waits/LSU AgCenter
By Olivia McClure omcclure@agcenter.lsu.edu GUEYDAN — In the late 1980s, a group of 4-H Junior Leaders in Vermilion Parish was itching to do something fun for a summer club activity. “They did not have the resources to take a trip to, back then, Six Flags in Houston,” recalled Mark Shirley, a coastal specialist based in the parish. “There wasn’t a Blue Bayou Water Park in Baton Rouge yet or…

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