Robert Thomas Butterfield
1940 - Dec. 13,1982

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History of BYS

In 1961, Tom Butterfield of Raytown, Missouri, enrolled at Missouri Valley College in Marshall. While working his way through college as an aide at the state mental hospital, Tom met a six year old boy who was living in the institution. The boy was not mentally disabled. The state, with no alternative, had placed the boy there after his parents were killed in an automobile accident. This young boy's condition served as the catalyst that brought about the founding of the first Butterfield Boys Ranch.

Tom won court battles to gain personal custody of the child, and he became Missouri's first single male foster parent and the youngest ever in this state's history. Having gained the legal right to take in children, Tom began his life's work of providing a community centered living alternative to the institutionalization of troubled children. By 1963 Tom had two young boys in his custody, and he leased the long abandoned Saline County Country Club with its surrounding 40 acres of farmland. After thousands of volunteer hours of repair and rebuilding of the property, Tom opened Butterfield Boys Ranch in late 1963 with three boys in his care. When Tom Butterfield completed his master's degree in social work from the University of Missouri in 1971, he had 18 boys in care at his one Boys Ranch residence.

In successive years, through the generosity of the local community, Federal Law Enforcement Administration and other grants, bequests, and donations, the Butterfield Boys Ranch has grown to seven children's residences accommodating 67 children and a growing network of therapeutic foster homes. The organizational name was changed to Butterfield Youth Services in 1976 when the first Butterfield Ranch for girls was opened.

In 2003, Butterfield Youth Services marked 40 years of commitment to troubled youth; the organization has redeemed the lives of hundreds of young boys and girls whose only alternative was institutional care. Tom Butterfield died in December of 1982, leaving a legacy of hope and caring for troubled children.