Seniors mix music and romance at their annual Valentines Party

By Alberta Stojkovic

More than 100 seniors came together to enjoy a Valen­tines party and dance Mon­day night at Seniors on Cen­ter in Mount Gilead. After din­ing on Spaghetti and meat­balls, salad and fruit with pink, frosted valen­tines cook­ies they danced to the music of “Dick Starcher and His Friends.”

Chet Leedy and June Pat­ter­son were crowned Valen­tine King and Queen and enjoyed sev­eral dances together through­out the evening. Chet cel­e­brated his 100th birth­day on Jan. 6th this year. Friends remarked that he dri­ves him­self to the dances every week.

“It’s won­der­ful that they chose Chet and June for king and queen,” said Joretta Wal­ton. “We see them danc­ing together here all the time.”

June said she dances with him every Mon­day night. She said he didn’t dance at all when they met two years ago when he was 98.

“I got him to dance,” said June. ”Now he dances more than any­one I think.”

June said she farms near Williamsport and still has about 75 head of beef cat­tle. She gave up hav­ing dairy cat­tle a few years ago. Chet said he retired in 1975. He used to farm and worked for Boyd Broth­ers in Fred­er­ick­town for sev­eral years.

“This lady is the one respon­si­ble for all the fun I have now,” remarked Chet point­ing to June.

The other romance every­one was talk­ing about was the mar­riage of Becky and Verl­ton Kunze. The cou­ple met at Seniors on Cen­ter and also went with sev­eral to McDonald’s after the dances. The 19th of Feb­ru­ary will be their sec­ond anniver­sary. Each of their spouses passed away in 2005, so they both feel very for­tu­nate to have found love a sec­ond time around.

Dick Starcher and his band kept the audi­ence enter­tained with coun­try music through­out the evening. John Her­sh­ner said they are keep­ing the band together for Bev and Jim Lilo since Jim had a stroke last year. The band will hold a ben­e­fit at the Ontario United Methodist Church on March 8th. It will be a spaghetti din­ner for an $8 dona­tion. Pro­ceeds from the din­ner will go to help with the exten­sive med­ical expenses Jim has had.

At the end of the evening door prizes were pre­sented by Seniors on Cen­ter Activ­ity Direc­tor, Eve­lyn Bar­nett with Tammy Mil­lisor from Kingston. Kingston donated the crowns for the king and queen along with the valen­tine cook­ies and sev­eral door prizes.

Seniors on Cen­ter is located at 41 W. Cen­ter St. in Mount Gilead. For more infor­ma­tion about ser­vices or pro­grams for res­i­dents of Mor­row County over 60 you can visit their web­site at www.seniorsoncenter.org or call 419–946-1037.

Posted by Taylor Kaser on Feb 20 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.