Ada Mae Ivester marked her 80th birthday on Sunday by learning that the new education center at the Northeast Georgia History Center has been named in her honor.

The Ada Mae Ivester Education Center was dedicated on Sunday at the history center located on the campus of Brenau University.
Ivester, a lifelong resident of Hall County, has always been a believer in education, which led her son, Doug Ivester, to the idea of surprising his mother on her birthday with the naming of the education center.

Doug Ivester said he decided to make the dedication a surprise because his mother would have resisted the dedication.

“She would have said, ‘Don’t do that; do it for someone else,’” Doug Ivester said.
Pat Burd, president of the Northeast Georgia History Center, said Mrs. Ivester is a very humble person who probably would have told her son, “no” if he had told her about the dedication.

About six months ago, Doug Ivester met with history center members to decide on what the needs were.

“They needed the education center,” Doug Ivester said. “So we spent some time with them deciding on what would be appropriate.”

When the museum was first built, it did not contain an area specifically for education. Over the past four to five years, it was acknowledged that the center needed an area devoted to education.

“We have been able to take some of space that we have and specifically dedicate it to the education process,” said Glen Kyle, history center managing director. “We hope to reach a large variety of folks.”

Kyle said the members of the history center felt that an education center would be one of the best things that would help them to achieve their mission to preserve and share the history of Northeast Georgia.

The education center will be equipped with room for seminars, classes and activities for both students and adults. The focus will still be on children and the center will provide teaching aids, reference and resource materials and a multimedia presentation system.

“It will be an area where we can let students come for presentations and adults come for classes or seminars,” Burd said. “It allows access to the freedom garden even while those things are going on, and that was something that we didn’t have before.”

Burd said that resource materials will be added to the center, which will help with studying Northeast Georgia history.

“I think it is a place where they can teach, but most importantly, it will be a place where thousands of school kids can come and get a lesson about our history here,” said Doug Ivester.

Everyone at the event made sure that others knew to keep the dedication a secret from Ada Ivester until the big announcement.

“Birthdays are all about surprises,” Kyle said. “The bigger the surprise, the better, so we are all hoping that she will be very surprised and very happy that the education center has her name on it.”

Mrs. Ivester’s face lit up when she was told that the education center was going to be dedicated to her.

She said afterward that she was “absolutely surprised.”

“I had no idea,” Ivester said.