Mildred Heath sees no reason to tamper with life patterns that have served her well.

So she continues to work as a reporter, is active in community groups and serves as writer of the annual Christmas letter to keep far-flung relatives informed about family developments.

At 100 years old, Heath continues to cheerfully blast through life with distinctive verve.  She has, in recent years, made a handful

of accommodations to the aging process: She no longer bakes her own bread —“I just don’t have the time”—and she has given up driving a car. Her preference? Whirring along the sidewalks on an electric scooter since breaking her hip six years ago.

She wakes up at six every morning, then presses on to her 30-hour-a-week job at the weekly Overton Beacon Observer. There she calls sources to gather community news, serves as receptionist, files photographs and takes advertisements.

“I’m needed. That’s why I’m working,” says Heath, who once published the little newspaper with her late husband and now works for her son-in-law, the publisher. Her granddaughter is the third member of the staff.

Retirement is not an option for Heath, who always totes a notepad for when she encounters something newsworthy. “I’ll work as long as I’m able. I enjoy it. I grew up in the business.”

Last week the woman who the Nebraska Press Association believes is the oldest working journalist in America was flown to Washington, D.C., to receive the 2008 America’s Oldest Worker Award from Experience Works, which provides employment assistance for older workers.

“Everyone seemed to want to have their picture taken with me,” says Health, after being treated to a whirlwind of lunches and meetings with elected officials. “The man who did my makeup said he was very proud to have worked on someone my age.”  

Afterwards, she quickly flew back to Nebraska to attend a big family wedding, unpack and prepare for her Monday workday.

“I keep busy,” says Heath, a member of the United Methodist Women, the Daughters of the American Revolution and the National Rifle Association.

She took her first newspaper job at age 15 to be near the young man she would marry. Over the years, they bought two Nebraska newspapers, founded another, had three daughters and endured everything from the stock market crash to killer floods and western Plains blizzards. She balanced career and family long before that was normal practice.

“I don’t worry about things, I never have. I just take them as they come” says Heath, who, in addition to her husband, also survives her daughters.

She remains, she says, extremely healthy, although her doctor has put her on a few pills to keep everything running smoothly. “I have wonderful eyesight, good hearing and I don’t have all my teeth, but I have most of them and the ones I have are very good.”

So, just how long does Heath want to continue working? As long as she can. Part of the fun is exploring new ways “in which I’ll be useful.”

(Photo by The Omaha-World Herald)

Sharon L. Peters is a writer in Colorado Springs, Colo.