I heard about OLLI at UNLV from my friend Steve. He and his wife and I have been friends for years, and he was taking classes here at OLLI. He told me about it and I said, sure. I began taking a class he was teaching and I really liked it and I started taking other classes and I've enjoyed it. By 2017, I actually started teaching with Steve, and we team taught for a number of semesters. I just really enjoyed it. The class we taught was called Staying Young as Old as You Can, and it was about 4 or 5 different areas of the world where people are living longer than one might expect. The question we asked was “what are they doing?” In these 5 areas of the world, why are people living statistically longer than we are here in the United States, or in other parts of the world. We discussed several different characteristics that are common to all 5 areas. Each area has its little particular way about them but there are 9 different aspects that are important for us to live longer. We introduced those aspects to the people in our class and they seem to really like it.
More recently, I was invited to serve on the educational programming committee. I worked for 30 years in the Clark County school district. I was a teacher, a school psychologist counselor, and then an administrator in the district. So, I kind of know a little bit about teaching and people and I felt I could really contribute, so why not join in? On the committee, I am helping to find areas where OLLI can grow and expand in our class offerings, and I am helping to find people to teach classes that we are not currently offering.
Some of my favorite classes over the years include the Artist’s Way and the Science of Natural Healing. These classes were amazing. I think I took the Artist’s Way twice. I also really, really enjoyed teaching and enjoyed working with that buddy of mine with our class. I would really encourage people to join OLLI for two reasons. First is keeping the mind active, and second is connecting with people. I remember during those early days, a group of about 4 or 5 of us after class, we would end up walking just to get exercise.