Students, Volunteers, Committee Members, Instructors
Members since 2018
Newly snowbirding to Las Vegas, in 2017, we were investigating things to do. We then found OLLI listed on the web and thought it would be a fun way to learn new things and meet people and we definitely were not wrong!
“So you know, the bottom line is OLLI is a fundamental part of our life, you know, when people ask us, ‘Well, what do you do with your time? I think the first thing that comes to mind is we're involved with OLLI. It's really a fundamental part of every week. Even when there's no semester, we're thinking about it, you know, it's really what we think about and what we do.” The Orts are longtime members of OLLI – nine years for Ed and six for Rita – who really exemplify the way to get the most out of our learning community.
Following my career in community mental health and a post-retirement coda teaching over 150 college and university courses, the prospect of retiring was daunting. I wanted to keep on helping people and I hadn’t yet had my fill of teaching. OLLI became a viable option to volunteer and to teach. Retirement fulfilled.
I first learned about OLLI from a friend in an organization that I volunteered with who is also from Hawaii like me, and I joined OLLI five years ago. Then two years later, we faced the pandemic, but we didn’t really miss a beat because we have the Zoom virtual learning.
Around five months after losing my wife, I was spending time at a senior center and my friend Dawn told me about OLLI. She said that I would really enjoy it, and she was absolutely right. I wasn’t so sure at first when she was telling me about it, but Dawn told me that I could sit in on a class or two. Once, I did, I realized this is really good. Someone suggested that I sit in on Fred Peters’ class on NASA, but I didn’t really think I would be interested in science. But guess what? After sitting in on the one, I haven’t missed his class since!
When I retired in 2017 and moved to Vegas to be near family, I didn’t know anyone. I started going to Meetup lunches and happened to meet someone who regularly attended OLLI. I had actually attended OLLI events through Cal State University Monterey Bay, so I was excited to find a program here at UNLV.
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.
I discovered OLLI at a turning point in my life. After 3 years of caring for my husband of 50 years who passed away from ALS, I found myself with a lot of time and energy, and nothing to do with it. My daughter-in-law was familiar with OLLI at Northern Illinois University, and suggested I “give it a try.” The idea of staying mentally active, gaining knowledge, having fun and not having to take exams really appealed to me. Plus paying one flat fee for the number and variety of classes offered was the final selling point.
Upon moving to Las Vegas 14 years ago, I contemplated retiring but decided to return to work. After settling in, I received an email about OLLI and attended an open house. The classes I learned about during the event looked really interesting, but having just accepted a job, classes weren't a real option with my schedule. After retiring 3 years later, I went back to OLLI as it was important to me to get involved and to find a more diverse community and meet new friends.
