Positively Ageless

A New Calling

Hardly a seat can be found in the chapel on Wednesday nights when resident Helen Koch leads her “Bad Girls of the Bible” class at The Fountains at Greenbriar in Independence, Mo. The course is one of dozens offered free to residents and guests through Watermark University, a collaboration of Watermark Retirement Communities and the numerous communities it manages across the country.

Initially, Koch was a little nervous about teaching for Watermark University, but her fellow residents have embraced her in this new role. She said the great turnout for her fall semester course has been a pleasant surprise.

A former pastor’s wife and nurse, Koch chose a somewhat unorthodox approach for her bible study, focusing on lesser-known female figures in the Old and New Testaments.

“I thought it would be good to expose them [the participants] to those women because they had some interesting stories,” she says. Koch, who has lived at The Fountains at Greenbriar for three years, said she wanted to pick a theme the residents wouldn’t expect.

She spent a good deal of time reading and preparing for her first-time teaching position at the community where she lives. Watermark University’s faculty is comprised of residents, associates, family members, and outside instructors.

Koch became so engrossed in preparing for her class that she joked about neglecting the news, another of her interests. She attends current events seminars twice a month and also participates in LifeBio, the biography-writing class offered through Watermark University. She also loves to read and spend time in her community’s on-site library.

“I think we need to keep ourselves alert,” she says. “We need to know what’s going on and talk about it.” Besides staying mentally active, Koch participates in many social and physical activities. One of her favorites is attending New Theater monthly, and she also enjoys the MaddHatters women’s group.

But Koch admits that sometimes simply doing nothing is appealing too. The choices represent the beauty of her retirement lifestyle within her community.