Husebo appreciates Saturday Market

Published 12:30 am Saturday, August 13, 2011

Editor’s note: Senior Saturday is a weekly feature that provides a look at area senior citizens, their accomplishments and their life experiences. Senior Saturday prospects are asked to fill out a questionnaire concerning their lives.

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Judith I. Husebo finds Washington’s Saturday Market and the Grace Martin Harwell Senior Center among her favorite destinations. (WDN Photo/Mike Voss)

This week’s Fifty Plus takes a look at Judith I. Husebo, a retired teacher.

Where are you from originally?

Butler, Mo.

When did you move here? Why?

We came here to be nearer to my daughter and family in New York.

To what clubs/church do you belong?

Grace Martin Harwell Senior Center, Moms & Pops (at Mother of Mercy Catholic Church) and the Lutheran church in Washington.

Education (list schools, starting with high school)

Rich Hill High School (Missouri), Fort Scott Community College (Kansas) and Missouri Southern State College, now Missouri Southern State University. (Joplin, Mo.)

If you weren’t doing what you are doing now, what would you be doing?

I enjoy being with my grandchildren (10), cooking and canning, quilting and photography.

If you have a million dollars, what would you do with it?

I would operate a “safe house” for women and children (at-risk), and I would tutor (the) underprivileged.

What is the thing most people don’t know about you?

My husband Jim fainted (out cold) twice during our wedding.

What is your favorite food?

Almost anything healthy!

What’s the last book you read?

“First Family” by David Baldacci.

What is your favorite TV show?

“The Dr. Oz Show” and PBS history shows.

Where would you go on your dream vacation?

Yellowstone National Park and Niagara Falls.

What is your pet peeve?

People who screen their cellphone calls. Don’t avoid people — be honest.

What’s the best advice you ever received and who gave it to you?

“You must learn what makes you happy.” When you know that, you can live happy with another human. My grandma, Emma Moore.

What’s the biggest difference between life as a senior as opposed to below age 30?

Before age 30, I tried to please and give all to others; once I learned to please myself, then I did a better job of pleasing others. “Know thyself, love thyself; to thine ownself be true.” (Socrates, William Shakespeare and R.W. Emerson.) Also, “God is watching.”

Compiled by Mike Voss

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.