Lois Cooper, a unit coordinator at the Southeast Georgia Health System
Camden Campus, has been selected as a 2008 Experience Prime Time Award
winner by Experience Works, a charitable, community-based organization
supported by individual donations, foundations and grants and focused
on meeting the training and employment needs of low income seniors. Cooper
not only won the Coastal Georgia Award, but also was selected from among
all the state winners as the Georgia winner and will join 49 other winners
Sept. 25 in Washington, DC, to receive her award. Each year Experience
Works selects 50 remarkable individuals to receive its annual Experience
Prime Time Award. Individuals must be age 65 and older and continue to
make valuable contributions in the workplace while promoting their own
good health and longevity by working.
According to Pamela Wooten, RN, Emergency Care Center manager and Cooper’s
supervisor, no one is more deserving of the award. “Lois is 72-years-old
and works fulltime on the night shift as a unit clerk,” says Wooten,
who nominated Cooper for the award. “Since she had polio as a child,
Lois walks with a limp, but she never complains and always comes in ready
to work. She is an exceptional worker and does the job like no one else
can. When I found out about the awards, I said ‘that’s Lois!’”
Cooper, a former 911 operator and nursing home administrator says she was
shocked when she found out she won. “When Pam (Wooten) called me
and told me I won, I told her that I was glad I was sitting in a recliner
or I would have fallen on the floor!” says Cooper, who will turn
73 in October. “I was floored when I won the Coastal Georgia award,
but I couldn’t believe when I won the national award for Georgia.
I am so excited.”
Although she will be unable to attend the Georgia awards ceremony, she
will be traveling to Washington to receive her national award. “I
love Washington, DC—all of the history,” says Cooper, who
after her first “retirement” spent four years traveling through
Europe and loves to travel as often as possible.
According to Cooper, she has been working since 1953 and has no intention
of stopping. “I tried retiring three times and it didn’t work,”
she says, laughing. “I get bored. I have to have something to do.”
In addition to working 15 years as a 911 operator in Kingsland—“a
very stressful job, but I loved helping people”—Cooper says
she has worked as an assistant nursing home administrator in Savannah,
a nursing home administrator at what is now the Southeast Georgia Health
System St. Marys Convalescent Center, a long-distance trucker along with
one of her sons—“I was a truckin’ mama and had a blast”—and
a fitting room attendant at the St. Marys Wal-Mart, before joining the
Health System as a team member in 2001.
Although she continues to work full-time, Cooper also stays active by being
involved in her church, Kingsland First United Methodist, reading, cross
stitching and crocheting, and spending time on the computer. However,
as busy as she stays with her hobbies and other activities, Cooper says
her job is an important part of her life.
“I love my job at the hospital and the people I work with,”
she says. “Other than having polio when I was a child, I have had
excellent health. I’ve been very fortunate and God has been good
to me. I can’t see myself retiring again!”