LUNCEFORD A memorial service is set for Saturday for long-time adult literacy teacher and Washington Little Theater founder Bolton Lunceford who died Sunday after a long illness.

The service is set for 11 a.m. Saturday, January 24, at the Episcopal Church of the Mediator in Washington.

The child of missionaries, Lunceford was born in Korea and came to the U.S. for college. She graduated from Georgia State University and took a master's degree at the University of Georgia.

Lunceford served with distinction in business and as a teacher in settings around the world before coming to Georgia. Always deeply involved in her community, Lunceford established an adult literacy program in Taliaferro County, and after eight years there, came to Washington. She began teaching English as a Second Language classes at the Parish House of the Episcopal Church of the Mediator, and worked to help immigrants fit into the community, working with landlords and banks, medicine and transportation, wherever families needed help.

She and her husband, the late A. Mell Lunceford Jr., helped found the Washington Little Theater Company, and she starred in or directed dozens of plays over the years. Her core contributions to the Washington Little Theater Company were recently honored with the naming of the company's playhouse "The Bolton Lunceford Playhouse."

A few months ago, her friends at the Church of the Mediator honored her for long years of dedication and service to the church and to the community of Washington-Wilkes, and after the memorial service, the community will have one last opportunity to share personal memories of Bolton Lunceford in the Parish House at the church.