Do Not Allow Yourself To Grow Old

Growing up in Newcastle, Pa, Herb Kirk kept himself in shape playing football and running track in high school. He then enrolled at Lehigh University. But when the U.S. entered World War I he and some of his buddies joined the Navy Flying Corps anxious for adventure. As a combat pilot, Herb flew reconnaissance and bombing missions.

When the War ended Herb returned to the U.S. determined to build a successful business career. Herb was creative, becoming an engineer, a salesman, and then a business owner. Sometimes he fared well and at other times he lost out but ultimately Herb succeeded.

Many of Herb's accomplishments came well after his retirement. Retiring from his business at 60, He wanted to pursue other activities and he and his wife Eleanor moved to Bozeman, Montana where she had family. There he became a potter, an avid tennis player all the way into his 90’s and a runner, running in races past the age of 100. Even in his 90’s, he would run for as long as an hour, four or five times a week, covering roughly four miles each run.

When he was 104 Herb became the oldest man to finish the annual Montana Governor’s 5K race.“It keeps me in good shape, active, interesting,” Herb told Good Morning America in a 1999 interview with Diane Sawyer. “I wouldn’t do without some exercise. I’d be downhill fast.”

But Herb not only exercised his body; he kept his mind active as well. At the age of 97, he became the oldest college graduate in Montana State University history when he earned his degree in Art. He was also one of the oldest people to graduate from college in U.S. history. It kept him engaged with people, especially young people with plenty of energy and new ideas.

Kirk's obituary in Runners World read: Herb Kirk, 1895-2001: "On October 3, one day after celebrating his 106th birthday, Herb Kirk, reportedly the oldest man to compete in an organized running event, died of pneumonia. At the Portland Marathon fun run in September 1996, Kirk finished the 2-mile course in about 36 minutes. He set several age-group records in his late 80s and early 90s. Herb, a Montana resident, holds world and American records ranging from 200m to the 5,000m on the track. He holds countless single-age records. Kirk was interviewed by ABC's Diane Sawyer and others for a 1999 profile

As Herb Kirk reinvented himself throughout his life, you can too as you enjoy exciting new opportunities. But he would never have attained all that he did nor live so long had he not kept his body and mind so fit, something each of us should commit ourselves to do.