Tarrell Awe Agahe Portman of Riverside, Iowa is Vice President of the Camp Wyoming Board of Directors. Tarrell is a member at First Presbyterian Church in Iowa City and has been involved with various committees, teaching Sunday School and worship activities. She is a former K-12 Teacher and School Counselor and is currently the Director of the Office of Ethnic Inclusion at the Graduate College, Associate Professor and Coordinator of the School Counseling and Counselor Education & Supervision programs at The University of Iowa.

Tarrell grew up as a migrant child as her father was an itinerant farmer. She graduated from a small high school in the Missouri Ozarks with a class of 28 people. Her greatest joy in life is helping others and her favorite food is BBQ ribs. The last book she read was Xenocide by Orson Scott Card and Tarrell says for fun she enjoying relaxing on the front porch watching the chickens, parenting and hobby farming.

Tarrell and her husband Gerald “Jerry” have been married 19 years and have five children, Jennifer , David, James, Breann,  and Colin.  The family has three Chihuahua’s, three cats, five goats, one horse and 33 chickens!

She first learned of Camp Wyoming through church. She strongly believes Christian camping helps young people develop their Christian identity, something of which is very important to her as a parent. Her children began attending Camp Wyoming in 2007 and fell in love with it continuing to attend and inviting their friends along. Tarrell and Jerry are licensed foster parents and one of the children attending camp for the first time returned saying, “I used to think God and Jesus weren’t real, and now I know they are real!” Tarrell believes Camp Wyoming touches the lives of children and builds a community of Christians in the future.