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PattiHanna. Say it quick.

They did for years on the third floor of the Guilford County Courthouse. The folks with Guilford County’s Guardian ad Litem program would superglue the first and last name together and yell it from one end of the hall to the other.

Don’t worry about phones. Or even an intercom. Nope. Like a spirited shout of “Amen!’’ during Sunday service, they’d yell “PattiHanna!’’ and their leader would come.

But she didn’t care. She liked that college-hall feel. And she’d often have her co-workers laughing so hard that the bailiffs would have to come in and get all serious: “Uh, y’all have got to calm down. We can hear you all in the courtroom.’’

Hanna steered a program that dealt with the most emotionally fragile in our county. These are the kids, adolescents and teenagers from broken homes who had been abused, neglected, forgotten, unwanted and basically alone.

So, Hanna used humor to help her co-workers heal because they had to deal with heart-wrenching stories every day. They had to advocate for these kids, watchdog the local department of social services and make sure the system worked.

Sometimes, it did. But sometimes, it didn’t. And whenever that happened, Hanna — excuse me, PattiHanna — marched into a Department of Social Services meeting and dropped a verbal bomb that made everyone fidget.

She chalks it up to the Irish in her. But really, Hanna is a big-hearted grandmother who saw firsthand the journey the most vulnerable among us have walked. Because of that, she worked to make her world — and theirs –— a better place.

So, she recruited, trained and comforted volunteers, and she called on the carpet anyone she felt stood in a child’s way. Like that high school principal who told one of her co-workers, “I don’t want any foster children in my school.’’

You just don’t do that to PattiHanna.

Her co-workers say she ran a tight ship, and she was a good captain. She had recruited hundreds of volunteers and hyperorganized their office to make sure every abused or neglected child — and that’s 325 children in Guilford County — had an advocate.

She did it for 17 years. She worked with the program in two supervisory roles that only reaffirmed what she learned years ago in classrooms at UNCG: Every child needs to belong to somebody.

A few weeks ago, she retired as district administrator from the Guardian ad Litem program so she could spend more time with her three young grandchildren.

She’ll be 61 in June, and she admits she’s tired of being angry. She has fought and fought and fought, and she says the older she gets, the harder it is to recharge — even with Johnny Mathis playing constantly in her head.

She’ll soon start working part-time as a receptionist in a furniture showroom in High Point and continue to volunteer in what she calls her “happy place,’’ Wallburg Elementary, the school where two of her grandchildren go.

But she won’t walk away from the Guardian ad Litem program. She’ll continue as a volunteer, and she’ll probably get hushed once again by bailiffs when she frequents the third-floor hallway and yells, “Hey, Girrlll!’’

She makes it feel more like “M*A*S*H’’ than “Law & Order.’’

Ask her about volunteering, and she’ll talk about kids needing to belong. But really, all you have to do is watch. Like at her recent retirement party, where a pool table at the Green Bean was a mountain of gifts.

There, as she stood by a tray of palm-sized cheesecake squares, with her chin cradled in her hand, she watched a slideshow on a laptop. She saw at least 30 older kids. She’d didn’t say much, except “Oh, she’s so beautiful!’’ or “He’s so grown up!’’

But she knew them all. And as the laptop photos clicked, she kept thinking, “Look at what we do. Look at all those smiling faces. They’ve been on a journey, and we’ve been there every step of the way.’’

So, she won’t stop. PattiHanna won’t stop.

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com