Searching for America’s Oldest and Best Workers

(NAPS) - If you know a relative, a friend or someone in your profession or organization who is over 65 and still working, there’s a way you can recognize his or her accomplishments and contributions.

Nominations are now being accepted for the Experience Works Prime Time Awards program for 2007, which will recognize an outstanding older worker from each state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, as well as America’s Oldest Worker and the top employer of older workers.

The Experience Works Prime Time Awards Program is the only national program that annually honors the contribution of working seniors. Now in its ninth year, the Prime Time Awards Program seeks to remove barriers to employment and lessen negative stereotypes about older workers.

Over 65 and Still Working?

To be considered for a state’s outstanding older worker or America’s Oldest Worker, applicants must currently work a minimum of 20 hours per week in paid employment, be 65 or older and be willing to travel to Washington, D.C., in October 2007.

Honored as “America’s Oldest Worker” in 2006 was R. Waldo McBurney, 104. McBurney began life in a sod house, walking a mile and a half to a one-room schoolhouse and eventually earning a degree in agriculture at Kansas State Agricultural College.

After a 25-year career in agriculture, McBurney got the entrepreneurial bug and combined seasonal businesses such as income tax preparation, disk sharpening, seed cleaning and beekeeping. The sale of honey became his most active business, and he maintained as many as 100 bee colonies.

Always physically active, at age 65 McBurney decided to take up long-distance running. After 10 years of practice, he began to enter races and for 25 years entered competitions and won medals.

In addition to beekeeping, McBurney is a published author who regularly markets his book, “My First 100 Years!”

The book provides his fascinating story and insights into nutrition, exercise and positive living and thinking.

“Lifestyle is the more important factor,” said McBurney. “We don’t get to choose our rents but we do select our lifestyles. Hard work didn’t hurt me - it helped.”

In 2005, Dwight Hauff, 100, owner of a sporting goods store in Iowa, was named America’s Oldest Worker, and in 2004, 100-year-old Ella Clarke Nuite, owner of a spring water company, was the first woman to receive the award. During October, honorees will take part in special activities in Washington, D.C.

For a nomination form, visit www.experienceworks.org. To receive a nomination in the mail, call (866) 397-9757.