Tag: Featured Stories

By Deborah Storey | Living 50 Plus Stay active. Make new friends. Inspire young people. Stay sharp. For seniors and retirees, these are great reasons to volunteer. Another is that volunteering in the community just makes people feel good about themselves. Lacy Slaten, volunteer coordinator at the Cook Museum of Natural Science in Decatur, said the museum has roughly 100

By Catherine Godbey | Living 50 Plus Stories of a church founded by slaves, a bank that served as a hospital during the Civil War and a riverboat captain and his girlfriend, a brothel madam, await participants in Decatur’s self-guided walking tours. With flat streets and at a pace set by each participant, the self-guided walking tours offer seniors an

By Deborah Storey | Living 50 Plus Laura Stewart once landed her hot-air balloon in a field of cows that rambled over to investigate the stranger from the skies. They “thought we might have food,” Stewart recalled. That’s the thing about piloting a hot-air balloon — you never know exactly where you’ll end up. As the wizard famously said in

By Catherine Godbey | Living 50 Plus Perched on the edge of the wooden seat, Mike Ward braced his feet on the floor of the boat, stretched his arms out over the water and shoved the paddle into Flint Creek. That was his introduction to dragon boating. “I didn’t have a clue what dragon boating was until the Decatur Morgan

By Bruce McLellan | Living 50 Plus Bill Cassidy exited his kitchen, walked briskly past the dining room table and went into the living room. He then turned left into the foyer, moved into the hall and picked up his pace as he walked past a grandfather clock. He arrived back at his starting point to complete a loop of

By Deborah Storey | Living 50 Plus Jack Nagel of Decatur has a simple explanation for why he’s still swimming in his 90s. “For my health,” he said. “That’s why I’m 91.” Get ready to feel guilty, you workout slackers. This inspiring senior citizen swims 30-minute pool sessions at least five days a week. Nagel has been swimming as part

By Catherine Godbey | Living 50 Plus Tucked away in the corner of libraries and archives in north Alabama, Tuscaloosa and Atlanta, the Rev. Wylheme Ragland spends hundreds of hours each year researching the past. “History, specifically African-American history, is my passion,” the 76-year-old Ragland said. “If I am doing research, I may stay up until 2 or 3 in