(NAPSI)-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 2008, 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 employers 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 11th 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 September 2008.
Honored as “America’s Oldest Worker” for 2007 was Horatio “Ray” F. Jenkins, 101. Born in 1906 in Amenia, N.Y., Jenkins remembers delivering groceries as one of his earliest jobs, but after training in business and electrical engineering at Albany Business College and then Northwestern University, he embarked on a wide range of positions that included an engineer with General Electric, a mortician’s assistant, a chauffeur, a fireman, and a policeman. Later on, he and his wife also ran a bakeshop.
Jenkins is presently employed by the Champlain Valley Exposition in Vermont. He wakes at 4 a.m. and by 5 leaves the Colchester house he built and travels to the Essex Junction fairgrounds to put in a full day’s work. He supervises two to three part-time employees working as assistants in the exposition’s 12,200-square-foot maintenance complex. When asked about cutting back his hours as he approached his 100th birthday, he said, “I work 40 hours just like everybody else. If I can’t do things, I don’t want to be here.”
Past honorees as America’s Oldest Worker include: 2006 – R. Waldo McBurney, 104 at time of award; 2005 – Dwight Hauff, 100; and 2004 – Ella Clarke Nuite, 100. In September, honorees will take part in special activities in Washington, D.C.
For a nomination form, go to experienceworks.org. To receive a nomination form in the mail, call 866.397.9757. Applications are due June 1.
