August 2007 Vol. 26. No. 8

Published by the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in Eureka, California. HSRC is a non-profit community-based organization offering services for senior citizens, multi-generational families and caregivers.

HICAP and Caregiver Services Programs move to 434 Seventh Street, Suite B
Medicare bus and Senior bill
Starting afresh: A new task is an exciting new canvas
Garberville: Healy Senior Center yard sale moves to Veterans Hall and Presbyterian Church
You can teach old dogs new tricks

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Starting afresh
A new task is an exciting new canvas
by Barbara Clark

Mary Beth Wolford has an artist's eye for a new project. The newest canvas she'll start painting in August is that of principal and superintendent of the Peninsula Union School District in Samoa, a tiny district of 46 students. At 75, she makes it seem as easy as getting out her paints and her clean brushes.

"My energy is high and I like new challenges," she said. "This district is a jewel in the rough. The staff is outstanding, and I can tell we'll be great friends."

Declining enrollment plagues the small K-eighth grade school. Each teacher takes on several grades, K-1-2, 3-5, 6-8. In addition to being support for the staff, Wolford will also focus on fundraising and grant-writing.

"Reinventing ourselves energizes us. It's nurturing to serve people in whatever capacity you work, and it strengthens the feelings of being part of a community." Wolford explained that she had the opportunity to take an interim position in Sonoma County. "I thought that might be fun, but then thought that there's nothing better than going to the grocery store and seeing someone I know from a job I've had or a board I've served on. I started from scratch when I moved to Eureka, and I don't want to start from scratch again."

Mary Beth was my boss for five years when she was executive director of the Humboldt Senior Resource Center, and she had a knack for starting things. The biggest for me was when she grinned at me one day and said she had found a lovely office for Senior News above the United Way. We're still there. To the Senior Resource Center, the biggest thing was the launch of the quiet fundraising phase of the New Alzheimer's Center for which ground was broken in July.

While still at HSRC, she ran for the Ward 1 seat on the Eureka City Council and served one term. "I hope I was able to make a contribution. I was interested in issues of crime, homelessness and economic development, also services for seniors and youth. I want to keep the youth in the community."

She was disappointed to lose re-election, more for the jobs she left undone. "I told myself, you'll take a new path and move on to something new, and the something new came along."

Alongside all the civic projects, she loves rehabbing houses. She's done a Victorian on Hillsdale and an old bordello on Second Street in Eureka. "At the same time I was doing the bordello, I was also rehabbing a convent in Fortuna for Adult Day Health - and I kept hoping I wouldn't get them confused," she said. She has redone a vacation rental called La Toscana in Ferndale, a beach house in Trinidad, and during all this built a tree house at her log cabin on the Van Duzen River. She's now working on a traditional 1980s house in the redwoods.

Barbara Clark is editor of Senior News.