Six years ago, at age 86, the Rev. Luther Tracy ’38 thought it might be helpful to connect senior citizens to young students. He started Grandpal, a pen-pal program at a country school outside Rio Grande, Ohio, his home for 50 years. The seniors reminisce about life at 10 years old, what growing up was like, what they did for fun, what they did in school. In turn, young students, just learning to taste the flavor of the written word, tell their senior pen pals how it is with them at age 10, growing up and all. Back and forth the letters go, once a month or so. At a year-end party, the generations meet for the first time. They celebrate their connection and their place in time.
“I started this because I just want to help the kids understand the past,” Tracy says of the program that grows with each year. For him, helping others gives meaning to life. He’s a helping hand, a pastor, a listener, a teacher, a friend. Staying busy gives him good feelings. Over the years, admirers record the time he devotes to others, bit by bit: 100 hours, 1,000 hours, 10,000 hours, now 13,000 hours. Tracy, who received a Faculty Citation for Excellence in Teaching in 1971 from Rio Grande College and who was inducted into the Rio Grande Educators’ Hall of Fame in 2002, has chalked up those hours in schools, churches, homes and senior citizen groups. In perspective, if the average person works about 2,000 hours a year, Tracy has volunteered for more than six years of his life.
This year, Tracy became the second Ohioan to be honored with the Presidential Lifetime Service Award, an honor earned by those who volunteer 4,000 hours or more. Ohio’s First Lady, Hope Taft, presented the award to Tracy on March 15, 2006, during the Make a Difference Day Awards Luncheon in Columbus.
Tracy is pleased, though not finished quite yet. “I’m slowing down a bit, but I stay busy.”