Reporter Carmen Duarte's Fave Five

Tucson High reunions of 'the Chasers' lead to a new book of memories

It was special to interview the author, and meet members of the Chasers who still live in Tucson. It was great to be around them as they talked about their Tucson High years, some shenanigans as teens, and life in the 1950s.

─ Carmen Duarte

The Chasers were a band of 12 at Tucson High School in the late 1950s. Eleven were Mexican-American and one was Jewish. They were all boys and athletes. Some were considered borderline delinquents who many thought would turn out badly.

They wore custom-designed gray sweater jackets. On the back, in crimson lettering, were the words “Chasers” and “Tucson.” Between the words was a martini glass filled with champagne and an olive.

The teens chased girls, but that wasn’t all, explained Renato Rosaldo, 78, a Chaser who received a scholarship to Harvard.

“The meaning is not fixed,” said Rosaldo, of Brooklyn, New York, in a recent telephone interview.

The teens also chased beer, truths and their dreams.

Rosaldo, an emeritus professor of cultural anthropology at both Stanford University and New York University, interviewed his high school friends in recent years and wrote a prose poetry collection, “The Chasers,” which was published this year by Duke University Press.

“Reworking the interviews into prose poetry, working to make harmony and making sure what remained was true to what they had to say was challenging,” said Rosaldo. “Arriving at the way I formatted the poems was the hardest in writing the book.”

The process, which included videotaping and transcribing the interviews, took about six years. The book includes childhood experiences, stories about institutional racism in the educational system, poverty, hard work, family values and friendships among teens growing up.

When Rosaldo received advanced copies, he autographed and read the book to the Chasers. It was the “most meaningful” reading because it was the “moment of truth, looking into the eyes of the bull.” The men accepted his work as true to what they said.

“I cried when I went home and told my wife what happened,” Rosaldo said with a laugh. “I cry a lot now that I am old.”

Reunions are ongoing

Most of the Chasers graduated in 1959 and never gathered again until their 50th Tucson High reunion in 2009. They met in the patio of The Shanty, an Irish pub north of downtown. It is a watering hole for many blue-collar workers and UA grads, professors, journalists and politicians.

That reunion flooded the men with memories of camaraderie, people and places they would never forget, and the importance of being a lifeline to each other as teenagers. The high school reunions have continued for the retirees and one is set for Oct. 24 at the Viscount Suite Hotel, 4855 E. Broadway.

Two Chasers, Andy Contreras, a Los Angeles supermarket produce manager, and Richard Rocha, a Riverside, California, attorney, have died.

In addition to Rosaldo, remaining Chasers include Frank Howe, a Tucson Unified School District principal. He was originally from Pirtleville in southeastern Arizona, and was a farm worker as a boy, working alongside his family as they followed crops to California fields and orchards. The book starts with his story, “Walnuts,” and tells of the backbreaking work, living in a labor camp, and following crops until he was in sixth grade and moved with his family to Tucson.

There also is Dickie Delahanty, a Tucson firefighter and paramedic who helped battle the historic Pioneer Hotel Fire in 1970, and Dickie Cota-Robles, a Southern Arizona field superintendent for a mechanical contractor.

Cota-Robles designed the Chasers’ jackets, saying he put champagne in the martini glass because he didn’t know anything about drinking. He and his cousin, Bobby Shoumaker, a neurologist in San Antonio, Texas, founded the Tucson High social club in 1956-’57.

The remaining Chasers are Louie Dancil, who left Tucson High and graduated from Pueblo in 1959. He became a businessman and shares stories of smuggling marijuana from Mexico and Jamaica into Arizona while piloting a Cessna, eventually serving three prison sentences. “I got into the trade because of the adrenalin rush and greed,” Dancil said.

Then there is Ray Escalante, an artist and Tex-Mex singer who performed regularly in Nogales, Rio Rico and Patagonia; Ralph “Ginger” Estrada, a Phoenix lawyer; Dr. Richard Koenig, a psychiatrist in East Quogue, a village in Long Island, New York; and Freddie Ochoa, an estimator in moving and storage who now lives in Pinetop.

Hiding their smarts

One close friend of the group is Angie López, who was the high school girlfriend to swim team captain Rosaldo. López became a bilingual teacher in the Sunnyside Unified School District and the owner of a religious store.

López described the Chasers as smart but said they kept it a secret because they didn’t want to look like nerds or be shamed as “schoolboys.” Those who shamed them did it because of jealousy, she said.

Rosaldo explained that Estrada taught him to carry two sets of books — one for school and one for home. The books at home he devoured, studying, learning the subjects and memorizing facts. At school he carried no books, leaving them in the locker, and no one messed with him.

The Chasers were football, baseball and basketball players and they attracted Anglo girls. Another Tucson High student, Tom King, said “Anglo boys felt jealous, wondered why you crashed their parties, didn’t know the girls had invited you,” López recalled.

She said there was loyalty among the Chasers, with members having each others’ backs.

“It wasn’t spoken, it just was,” she said.

The men look back at their teen years and can roar in laughter. Among the memories are the years they would scout homes in the wealthy El Encanto neighborhood, just west of what is now El Con Mall. Once they figured out who was on vacation, they would go swimming in their pool at night. One time, Escalante forgot his trunks and hopped in the pool in the nude. Someone called the cops. When the cops came, the Chasers ran, and the spotlight hit Escalante, who was “running across the street bare-ass naked.”

Eventually, the Chasers rented rooms and went swimming at a hotel on Tucson’s far northwest side.

Five Chasers owned wheels — three had Chevrolets, one a Mercury and one a Dodge convertible — which got the teens around town.

Another funny story landed the Chasers in jail before they were transferred to “Mother Higgins,” as the juvenile detention facility was known. They took up a challenge from “gringo” students at Tucson High to an orange fight on campus. It was the last day of school their junior year.

The group went to the Sam Hughes neighborhood and picked oranges off the trees or on sidewalks. They filled the back seat and trunk of a Chevy and returned to school.

The oranges went flying throughout the campus and in the hallways. But the Chasers were the only ones busted. They were released to their parents, and authorities let the parents deal out the punishments. Some were grounded, some were not.

Rosaldo recalled portions of his childhood. After one year of college, his father, also named Renato Rosaldo, migrated to Chicago, received his doctorate at the University of Illinois, and married Betty Potter, an Anglo woman. Later, he taught Mexican literature in the Spanish Department at the University of Wisconsin. Rosaldo liked growing up in Madison with his friends and the snow, playing sports and being a good student. He was also pained when he started forgetting Spanish, explaining that a part of him died.

Then, in the 1950s, he moved to Tucson with his family when his dad was hired as head of romance languages at the University of Arizona. Rosaldo made a new friend, and one day he heard the friend call “Mexicans dirty.” The friend looked at Rosaldo and told him that he didn’t mean him.

But the words struck a chord and Rosaldo told himself he had to re-learn Spanish and become Mexican-American. He remembered conversations with his grandmother, Mama Emilia, while she cooked chilaquiles and arroz con pollo. It took time, but his Spanish eventually started to flow.

He later joined the Chasers, teens who became his protectors and lifelong friends.

'Greatest Generation' honored for their service at largest Tucson gathering in recent years

This was the largest gathering of World War II veterans in Tucson in recent years.

─ Carmen Duarte

American flags and a red, white and blue theme decorated a grand ballroom. Black-and-white photographs of young men and women serving during World War II were on display. Some veterans brought their decorations and medals earned in battle.

The lively sounds of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” “Chattanooga Choo Choo” and other tunes of the 1930s and ’40s were performed by The Manhattan Dolls, a swing-style group that originated in New York City in 2009, entertaining at military events and celebrations. Some songs, including the service songs of each branch of the military forces, brought tears to veterans’ eyes.

Nearly 150 veterans — known as the “Greatest Generation” — living during the Great Depression and fighting in the war gathered for a luncheon that was honoring them. More than 400 attended the event Thursday at the DoubleTree by Hilton Tucson.

It was a time to socialize and recall war stories, rekindling memories and friendships among themselves before they die. Some entered the ballroom on their own two feet, others used canes, walkers and some were in wheelchairs.

105-year-old WAC cook

The oldest veteran in attendance was Sgt. Sophie Yazzie, 105, who enlisted in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in 1943 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The auxiliary unit later converted to the Women’s Army Corps.

Yazzie is from Chinle on the Navajo Nation. She lives in Tucson with her daughter, Kathleen Lampert. Lampert said her mother, who does not talk much anymore, was assigned to the Army Air Corps and was trained as a cook and a nurse in the 734th WAC, post Headquarters Company in Florida.

Since Yazzie could not stand the sight of blood, she became a cook and worked preparing meals and baking sweets, eventually stationed at Foster Air Force Base in Victoria, Texas. It was a training airfield during the war.

Lampert remembered her mom’s tasty cinnamon rolls, eating them as a child on into adulthood. She said her mom never used a cookbook, rather the recipes were all memorized.

After her military service, Yazzie was hired as a cook at Fort Wingate Boarding School in New Mexico and retired in 1979. She often attended military and veterans celebrations up until two years ago, slowing down with aging, said Lampert. She filled up with pride once more, being among fellow veterans celebrating their accomplishments, and seeing the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base Honor Guard.

Other honorees included Pfc. Robert Whalen, 94, who left Tucson High School at age 17 in 1943, enlisting in the Marines with his father’s permission. He witnessed the raising of the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima. And there also was Army Staff Sgt. Denzel Clouse, 95, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge — spending Christmas Eve in 1944 in a foxhole in Belgium.

Whalen, an artilleryman with the 14th Regiment in the 4th Marine Division, said he was a poor swimmer and almost drowned when his landing craft sunk. He was rescued by another landing craft and went on into Iwo Jima where a major battle ensued — the Marines and Navy eventually capturing the island from the Imperial Japanese Army.

“We were a tough breed,” said Whalen, who was honorably discharged in 1945. He married Dorothy Hughes, a nurse, and the couple have been together for 72 years. She was at his side during the celebration.

Whalen received his bachelor’s in sociology and his master’s in education from the University of Arizona, and was a teacher and principal for 29 years in Tucson Unified School District, retiring in 1984.

“I am enjoying being with and seeing this brotherhood of men and women,” said Whalen. “We had so much patriotism, there was no division,” he said, describing the unity he felt among the veterans, and the joy hearing songs performed by The Manhattan Dolls.

Clouse, also attended the event with his wife, Sue. The couple have been married for 29 years. He said the most difficult memories of the Battle of the Bulge, serving with the 75th Infantry Division, were living in the battlefields over the winter months.

After his military service ended in 1945, he went back home to Terre Haute, Indiana, and then moved to Tucson in 1951 and worked in accounting.

Honoring them for their service

Carl Haupt, a 93-year-old World War II veteran, philanthropist and author, hosted the event, along with a charity he founded, to honor his fellow comrades. He received the help of veterans organizations in extending invitations.

Haupt said he paid for the veterans, their wives and caregivers to attend the occasion. He said he wanted to honor them for their service and caring acts in their lifetime. Each veteran will receive a medallion in gratitude with an angel on one side representing the charity Angels on the Border, an organization he helped start.

“This is a historical event — the gathering of these many World War II veterans at a luncheon,” said Kathy Mansur, coordinator for Honor Flight Southern Arizona. “This is possibly the largest gathering in recent years.”

It is a privilege to see the Greatest Generation connecting to each other and being remembered, explained Mansur, who along with her husband, Thom, joined Honor Flight Southern Arizona to pay homage to their fathers, both World War II veterans who have died.

Mansur is a volunteer with the nonprofit organization that provides all-expense paid trips to World War II, Korean and Vietnam veterans to see their memorials in Washington, D.C.

Since 2011, the group has flown 957 veterans from Southern Arizona to the nation’s capital, including 714 World War II veterans, of which 356 are alive, said Mansur.

As the Greatest Generation ages, most veterans in attendance at the DoubleTree were in their 90s, one was 89 and some were nearing 100.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs data shows that in 2018, 496,777 of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II were alive. About 348 were dying every day.

Photos: 148 World War II Veterans gather in Tucson for special luncheon

Veteran luncheon

Updated Nov 7, 2019

Veteran luncheon

Updated Nov 7, 2019

Veteran luncheon

Updated Nov 7, 2019

Veteran luncheon

Updated Nov 7, 2019

Veteran luncheon

Updated Nov 7, 2019

Veteran luncheon

Updated Nov 7, 2019

Veteran luncheon

Updated Nov 7, 2019

Veteran luncheon

Updated Nov 7, 2019

Veteran luncheon

Updated Nov 7, 2019

Veteran luncheon

Updated Nov 7, 2019

Shortage of home-care workers in US, Arizona called a 'growing crisis'

This story sheds a spotlight on the shortage of home care workers in Arizona and the United States.

─ Carmen Duarte

A nationwide shortage of in-home caregivers is expected to create about 1.4 million new job openings by 2026 because of the rising demand as the U.S. population grows older.

In Arizona, nearly 41,000 new jobs for direct-care workers are expected to open over the next seven years to try to meet the increasing need, according to Stephen Campbell, a policy analyst for the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute, a nonprofit based in New York City. The institute works to improve long-term services for the elderly and those with disabilities.

These crucial home-care workers in Arizona — including personal-care aides and home-health aides — assist the elderly and physically disabled in their homes. Aides help with bathing, dressing, cooking, cleaning, laundry and running errands so that clients can remain in their homes rather than move to assisted living or nursing facilities.

The jobs can be difficult as many elderly patients suffer from illnesses or cognitive impairments, and the pay often tends to be around minimum wage, with no employee benefits. Employee turnover is generally high.

Judy Clinco, founder and president of Catalina In-Home Services, said there has been little planning by public agencies, health-care providers and families for the long-term late-in-life care of seniors as the “tsunami of (aging) baby boomers” has hit.

Clinco, a registered nurse who founded the home-care agency in 1981 when her mother needed support to remain in her home, said, “Families have not had discussions about what is needed now and in the future for their parents, and where it will be provided as they age.” Discussions about costs and what families can afford also must take place, she said.

In many families, adult children usually take care of their aging parents. But there are families who cannot because of their jobs or they live out of state or they need help because of their parents’ declining health. Then there are seniors who never had children or married.

That’s where the home-care worker comes to fill those needs. Their work is vital to senior citizens who want to remain in their homes as long as possible.

As the home-care industry, communities and government officials grapple with these facts, they also have to face the fact that the turnover rate of employees in the industry is high and must be remedied as Americans live longer and 10,000 baby boomers will be turning 65 each day until 2030.

Among the main reasons home-care workers leave their jobs is low pay, part-time hours, shifting schedules and lack of benefits, industry experts say.

“Born to be a caregiver”

Sabah Bouhamouda, a native of Algeria in North Africa, has worked in home care for nearly 10 years and has found her niche with Catalina In-Home Services, where she has worked for four years.

“I just love my job. It is nice to feel that you are helping others,” said Bouhamouda, 46. “I feel like I was born to be a caregiver.”

She said she works with three clients ranging in age from their 80s to 100.

“I help them with personal care such as bathing, dressing, preparing their food, laundry and cleaning. I work nights and stay in their homes,” she said.

Bouhamouda said it takes a special person to be a caregiver.

“You have to care about people and be very, very patient. It can be difficult when they are sick and don’t feel good, or have dementia or Alzheimer’s,” she said. “You are a stranger in their home and they may be mean to you, but it is the disease. You can’t take it personal. You have to make them feel safe and build trust.”

She praised Catalina In-Home Services for refresher courses and training every six months to teach workers the latest methods and techniques in helping clients.

Bouhamouda said she earns $13 an hour, gets overtime pay, health benefits, mileage and the company pays her AAA membership.

“They treat workers with respect, give us support during our work shifts when we need it,” she said, explaining that she has access to a nurse if a client becomes sick. “We get briefed about each client before we decide if we want to work with them or not.”

Another agency she previously worked for paid her $7 an hour and after three years she earned $9 an hour. She received no mileage or benefits, and received limited training in earlier jobs.

For Brenda Merino, being employed as a home-care worker for eight years was enough. She began at age 18 and left at age 26. During that time, she served more than 30 clients who were elderly or physically disabled.

Most of her clients were 65 to nearly 90 years old. Some had strokes and others were doing relatively well. Some remained in their homes while their spouses had to be placed in an assisted living facility.

It was Merino’s nature to want to nurture and help people by doing the “little things that we all take for granted,” like being able to bathe, groom, cook and clean.

“I enjoyed going into their homes and accomplishing tasks they weren’t able to do. I liked spending time with them and getting to know about their lives,” she said.

However, Merino found it difficult when her clients died.

“I was attached to them and it was super hard for me to let go,” she recalled.

She also agreed with Bouhamouda that pay and benefits have to improve to attract and retain workers.

Merino, 36, now works as a part-time driver delivering food, earning $12.37 an hour.

Carol Browne retired from the health-care industry five years ago at age 70, earning $12.50 an hour as a patient care technician at a hospital. She began working as a nursing assistant in a nursing home in the late 1970s. Her duties included changing bed linens, bathing, grooming and feeding patients.

“I treated my patients like I would treat my mom. It is a lot of work. You are dealing with human beings, not car parts,” said Browne.

“Some can be crabby. But they are aching and they can’t do for themselves like they used to. They are lonely and their friends have died,” she said about her days in the nursing home.

To earn more money, on weekends she traveled to Green Valley and worked in private homes, caring for two to three elderly women. This was in the 1980s and she was paid $5 an hour.

When she returned to Pima Community College and took courses and earned a certification, she advanced to a patient care technician and also became a phlebotomist.

“I remained in the medical field working with the sick because I saw this as a calling. I wanted to help people. I worked on patients pulling out needles and putting in catheters,” Browne said.

“I was slugged by a patient and passed out. I was bitten by a patient and I had to undergo an exam to make sure I did not have HIV. That scared me. I was very lucky.

“I comforted families who were scared. I talked to a woman in the parking lot who was crying in her car. There is an emotional toll.”

One day, Browne said she found out a young man working at a Dunkin’ Donuts was earning more money than she was, and that just didn’t sit right with her.

“Although you may love your job very much, workers have to get paid more than the guy at the Dunkin’ Donuts,” she said.

Tight labor market

By 2026 in Arizona, the home health care industry will have a total of 129,784 projected job openings, including the nearly 41,000 new openings to meet rising demand, falling just below the number of forecasted openings in retail sales, cashiers, fast food and customer-service jobs, said Campbell, of the nonprofit Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute.

“These occupations have low barriers to entry and offer wages that are similar to those in home care, so competition for workers will continue to be tight,” said Campbell.

W. Mark Clark, president and chief executive officer of the Pima Council on Aging, said the industry knows that wages and benefits have been an issue. He said home-care workers are usually paid more than the Arizona minimum wage of $11 an hour.

Also, there are some exemptions in state law that require businesses to provide workers with paid sick time.

Some agencies provide some level of health care coverage, said Clark, “unfortunately, like all employer-sponsored health care, all have co-pays and deductibles, which can make it hard for employees to make use of it.”

He also said businesses only have to provide health benefits for employees who work more than 30 hours a week, and many home-care workers are hired as part-timers.

Getting high school students interested in home-care careers through the Pima JTED Career and Technical Education District is one way of bringing youths on board to fill projected job openings. The district offers training for a personal assistant/caregiver who works in the home.

“At the end of the day, it comes down to costs and revenue,” said Clark. Agencies are funded by the state and “we turn around and pay the providers,” he said, explaining that the council on aging owns PimaCare at Home, the only home-care provider in the county whose workers are represented by a union.

The agency was launched in December 2010, when the county closed its Pima Health System long-term care program.

As Americans live longer, about 17 percent of adult children care for their parents at some point in their lives, and the likelihood of doing so rises with age, according to a study by research economists Gal Wettstein and Alice Zulkarnain at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

By 2035, for the first time in U.S. history, older people will outnumber children, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Jonathan Vespa, a Census Bureau demographer, predicts “78 million people 65 years and older compared to 76.7 million under the age of 18.”

Initially, the family caregiver may be able to provide the care for their loved one, but as the person declines in health they will need more assistance, said Clinco. If a person is low-income, they may qualify for the Arizona Long Term Care System under the Arizona Health Care Cost Containtment System for fixed-income seniors and those with disabilities.

If qualified, a family can get care paid for by the state provided a company or a family caregiver is trained by a state-contracted agency. Such caregivers must meet certain standards, including continuing education, submit to a background and fingerprints check, and undergo a state review for compliance.

However, home-care companies are not licensed by Arizona, and there is a shortage of well-trained professional caregivers, said Clinco, who requires her employees to have more training and skills than is required by the state. In addition to ongoing training, she hires workers with experience.

Many families cannot afford to pay an agency for a professional caregiver, said Clinco, explaining that not all seniors have purchased or qualify for a long-term-care policy from a private insurer.

In the Tucson area, an agency charges between $23 to $27 an hour for services, which covers business-related costs, including benefits, taxes and payroll, said Clinco.

Many families have to turn to neighbors or people they know or are recommended to them to care for their loved ones, Clinco said.

Others take to the internet and look for help through online classified employment ads.

This so-called “gray market” worries Clinco, because a stranger with no training or background checks enters a home to care for a vulnerable person and there is a greater potential for abuse and neglect.

Clinco, an advocate for clients and caregivers, founded a training institute in 2001 for caregivers working in home care, assisted living facilities and nursing homes.

“The client needs skill, compassion and reliability, and caregivers need to be valued, appreciated, receive higher wages and continued training,” said Clinco, adding that more than 3,000 certified nursing assistants have gone through the institute.

“In Arizona, dog groomers, manicurists and pedicurists require significantly more hours of training, including practical experience, compared to up to three days of training required for home-care workers by the state’s long-term-care system,” said Clinco.

“The worse thing that can happen to a dog is a bad hair day,” Clinco said. “The worse that can happen for an elderly, vulnerable person is death.”

“As baby boomers age, they will see the writing on the wall, and their voices can rise to make demands on some federal government subsidy to provide for home-care services,” said Clinco.

“We cannot afford to ignore long-term-care issues,” said Anna Maria Chávez, the National Council on Aging’s executive vice president and chief growth officer.

“The nation is ill-prepared to address the growing crisis and lacks a coordinated, national public-private system for adequately and efficiently delivering high quality long-term supports and services.”

The national agency has worked on educating politicians and communities about this issue over the years, said Chavez.

She said the council supports a bipartisan effort to establish a national long-term-care insurance financing system that would be fully paid for and increases affordable options for working Americans.

The insurance would not exclude buyers because of pre-existing health conditions. Among benefits the financing system would create are market opportunities for private insurance and significant savings to the Medicaid system, according to a brief from the council.

Pima Council on Aging names center after Katie Dusenberry, advocate for elderly

This is a much needed Katie Dusenberry Healthy Aging Center in central Tucson.

─ Carmen Duarte

At age 95, Katie Dusenberry keeps on working to further the expansion of services for older adults in Tucson.

Her latest gift is a $300,000 donation to a capital campaign to raise $2.5 million to purchase, renovate and operate the new Pima Council on Aging’s Katie Dusenberry Healthy Aging Center. More than $1.8 million has been raised.

The 16,000-square-foot center at 600 S. Country Club Road — across from Reid Park — is a centrally located hub for services to support quality of life for older adults, and to advocate for them and their families. Agency staff moved into the new center recently but the private grand opening festivities are set for mid-November.

“This center means a lot to me,” said Dusenberry. “It means that we will have the priorities set to have aging as a living part of our community.”

Aging issues have always been of great importance and must remain in the public eye, said Dusenberry in a recent interview about her longstanding community service. “Our elders are extremely important in the life of our community because they have had experiences the younger generation can learn from.”

Pioneer for aging services

Dusenberry was nominated in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan to the Federal Council on the Aging, which advised the president, Congress and other governmental leaders about issues facing seniors as part of the Older Americans Act.

The Older Americans Act funds services, including home-delivered meals, senior centers, caregiver support and transportation, that help keep older adults healthy and living independently.

She remembers the difficulty “to keep the Older Americans Act alive and have Congress enact it every year. It was a constant fight. We were going to make a difference, and we did,” she said of the council’s tenacity to secure funding for aging services. Dusenberry recalled having the ear of President Reagan, sitting by him during lunch at the White House. She served on the Federal Council on the Aging for nearly 10 years.

W. Mark Clark, president and chief executive officer of Pima Council on Aging, described Dusenberry “as a pioneer leading the way for the improvement and expansion of aging services” throughout her career locally and at the state level while she served on the Pima County Board of Supervisors. Dusenberry, who says she is a moderate Republican, was the first woman on the board, elected in 1976.

She also served on the council-on-aging board for more than 10 years. The council “is a stronger organization because of her involvement. In fact, the aging network nationally is stronger because of her championing the Older Americans Act,” said Clark.

“We are so grateful for that legacy of service,” said Clark, expressing that it is a privilege to recognize Dusenberry’s lifetime of work by naming the center after her.

As Americans live longer, and 10,000 baby boomers will be turning 65 each day until 2030, the aging center will help handle the growth for senior services in Pima County.

Demographics in the county show 25% of all residents are age 60 and older. In 2017, Arizona’s population was estimated at 7 million, and by 2020, one in four Arizona residents will be 60 or older, according to state projections. Council officials say Tucson has the third-oldest population of all major metro areas in the nation.

The healthy aging center will house workshops, social, educational and wellness activities, exercise classes, information and referral about community services, falls prevention seminars and health education, Medicare counseling and family caregiver support.

The council’s home health-care company, PimaCare at Home, will be based at the aging center, and its caregiver training program will be expanded.

In addition to the aging center, the council’s administrative office — the Marian Lupu Building at 8467 E. Broadway — will remain open and programs will continue to be offered there along with exercise classes at several neighborhood centers in the Tucson area.

Long history of community service

For Dusenberry, a native of Phoenix who moved to Tucson when she was 10, community service runs in her blood. She learned its significance from her parents, Oakley and Florence Norton. Her father was in the dairy business, and her mother worked in banking.

Dusenberry graduated from Tucson High School in 1942 and attended the University of Arizona for two years before finishing at Iowa State University, receiving a degree in nutrition and hospital dietetics. She returned to Tucson and worked with patients, including the elderly, at Tucson Medical Center before marrying Bruce E. Dusenberry in 1948.

Son Bruce L. Dusenberry recalls his mother’s energy and strength in rearing him and his three sisters while helping his father operate a moving business that was in his family since the 1920s. He was the brawn, and she ran the office doing all the administrative work. The couple was married for 69 years. Bruce E. Dusenberry died in 2017.

Horizon Moving Systems was built into the largest mover in Arizona and a major company in the United Van Lines and Mayflower Transit national systems. Their son took over the business in 1993 until 2013 when operations in Tucson, Phoenix and Flagstaff were sold.

While working for the moving business and running a household, Katie Dusenberry then served on the Tucson Unified School District board for 11 years. She ran for the board in 1963, and was elected board president in 1967 and in 1971.

She decided not to run in 1974, and later served on a desegregation committee when the federal government said the district had to racially balance it schools. She suggested magnet schools, which eventually was adopted by the board.

In addition to being the first woman on the county board of supervisors, Dusenberry also was the first woman on the Tucson Electric Power Co. board and the first woman president on the Tucson Airport Authority Board about 40 years ago.

The Dusenberry-River Library, 5605 E. River Road, is named after her. It opened in 1991, and was the 17th library in the county public library system, says a county website. Her work included consolidation of the city and county library systems.

A key aspect of Katie Dusenberry’s life has always been community involvement — a family value passed down from her parents and grandparents, said her daughter-in-law Lynne Wood Dusenberry, recalling the importance of holidays, such as Thanksgiving gatherings at a family home near Big Bear Lake in California.

In a video tribute, her son said: “The Dusenberry family, in particular my mom, has been associated with PCOA for many, many years. This (monetary) gift that she’s making now is just a furtherance of all of that.”

He said the family is proud that Katie “continues to want to do things for the community in a very significant way.”

Seniors reliving memories, experiencing new adventures through virtual reality

Seniors experiencing life and new adventures through virtual reality is a fun story.

─ Carmen Duarte

Joy Kay went on a daring roller-coaster ride — traveling high into the air and then dropping fast into a body of water before coming back up onto a winding track leading through a mountain passage.

The 85-year-old retired day care worker didn’t utter a sound as the roller coaster traveled over what appeared to be a cliff, landing on a track leading into pine country.

“Isn’t it wonderful,” says Kay, while wearing a headset and laughing about her virtual reality roller coaster ride that appears so real because of the sounds and three-dimensional, 360-degree view.

Virtual reality is a computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional image or environment that can be interacted with in a seemingly real or physical way by a person using special electronic equipment, such as a headset with installed software equipment or hand-held touch controllers.

Researchers around the country are studying virtual reality’s role in senior care in many ways, including to see if it can help improve elderly patients’ cognition, loneliness, help with mobility issues or to better detect the onset of dementia or other health problems.

For Kay, this was her second experience on the roller coaster ride as a resident of the northwest-side The Fountains at La Cholla, 2001 W. Rudasill Road, owned by Watermark Retirement Communities.

The virtual reality program, “Engage VR,” was developed for Watermark, which uses the cordless headset system Oculus Quest.

Watermark piloted the program at The Fountains and at The Hacienda at the River, 2720 E. River Road, and now it is expanding into more of its communities nationwide, said Zoe Katleman, a project manager for Watermark’s innovation team.

Katleman is leading Engage VR nationally and eventually the program will be implemented among its more than 60 retirement communities.

Another Fountains resident, Joy Golliver, took a turn playing a virtual reality game in which she was a ninja using a samurai sword to slice fruit in the air.

“I’m out of breath,” said Golliver, 84, after playing the game for about five minutes and getting a good arm workout.

The retired businesswoman, who is an author and memoir writer, then experienced traveling by virtual reality to Kachess Lake, Washington, a mountainous community where she and her late husband lived for 22 years.

The Google Cast street view image brings joy to Golliver when she recognizes a former neighbor sitting by the lake.

She texted her children about her trip to the lake, and both her sons, who live in Seattle, texted her back, wondering how she traveled there without them knowing about it. The mother told them about the wonders of technology and her experiences with virtual reality at the Fountains.

“This technology can take us to any memory in our life that we want to visit,” said Golliver, explaining it is aiding her with writing memoirs. She then mentioned her visits to Roslyn, Washington, and a bar that was used for the 1990s television series “Northern Exposure.”

Kay also used virtual reality to go back to her home in Naperville, Illinois.

While she wore the headset and saw her neighborhood, that same image was visible on a TV screen for others to see. Kay’s voice filled with excitement as she saw where she grew up, including the neighborhood’s lush lawns and tall trees. An image of the DuPage River appeared and she recalled her husband laying the brick on the Naperville Riverwalk.

“I can come here anytime and go home,” said Kay of the virtual reality session. “It is so popular that you have to sign up.”

Ricky Garrett, the technology concierge at The Fountains, has a waiting list of residents who want to experience virtual reality’s trips and games.

“It is a hit,” said Garrett. “It is really cool technology and cool to see someone engage in it.”

Among experiences residents can partake in is visiting pyramids in Egypt or the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

One woman who lives at The Hacienda at the River recently shared how the powerful experience reconnected her to a “sense of adventure again.” She was a world traveler until she turned 90, and now once again can travel the world through virtual reality.

Other possibilities with virtual reality include residents’ wishes to travel to any landmark in the world, fly to the moon and back on the Apollo 11 mission, swim with whales, climb glaciers in Antarctica or go on fishing expeditions.

Eventually, residents at the two Tucson retirement communities will have the ability to connect with residents at other Watermark communities. For example, veterans who served in the same battalion could connect in a virtual living room to talk and compare stories,” said Katleman.

It took Grayson Barnes, who is experienced in gaming design and development, about two years to develop Engage VR for Watermark.

Barnes, 20, who is studying at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, said in an email interview that “One of the first things we looked at when starting the project was how virtual reality affects those with dementia.

“I was surprised to learn that a lot of research has been done on the subject. I found articles detailing dementia patients being more themselves after experiencing virtual reality.”

He said he also learned a group of researchers have “turned to virtual reality as a potential method to screen for early signs of dementia.”

Watermark has a strong relationship with the University of Arizona’s Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute and the UA Department of Psychology, said Katleman.

“As an extension of this relationship, we are highly motivated to explore research projects involving virtual reality where new information will help to provide better understanding of dementia,” Katleman said.

Dr. Marvin Slepian, a world-renowned University of Arizona physician-scientist who is a regents professor of medicine and director of the Arizona Center for Accelerated Biomedical Innovation, said virtual reality is being used in general for advanced diagnosis and therapy for patients.

“Advances in wearable technology, virtual reality and integrative imaging hold the promise of revolutionizing how we monitor, control and prevent disease,” said Slepian.

He said imaging and virtual reality are being used to relieve surgical pain, administer physical therapy and cognitive rehabilitation, and complement surgical training.

In regards to virtual reality programs, such as Engage VR, he said in general patients with dementia whose brains stay active and engaged have better cognition.