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"Here in Bakersfield the campus and the community are so close... It's a mixture of people and community together"

Waite

"By us volunteering, the university was able to spend the money on classes and educational materials to benefit the students"

Chamberlin

"(The most important part of the 60+ Club) is the people. Although they're older, they're not ready to quit living. They keep active and keep busy."

The 60+ Fight Song
Words: Wendall Kinney
Tune: The Sheik

CSU we’re here for you;
To help with what you do.
Doré, the gym, the rose;
The birds, the crowds, who knows?

Having fun, we learn, we shine;
We sing, we laugh, we dine.
Despite the freeze, the fry,
We’re young until we die.

(second-half music, Gilbert & Sullivan style)

60+ Club - 'We're young until we die'

By Mike Stepanovich

You see them at sporting events, commencement ceremonies and plays, handing out programs or helping people find their seats.

You see them quietly tending the rose garden by the Todd Madigan Gallery, and cataloging the collection in the California Well Sample Repository.

And you see them – if you’re in the right place – helping prepare all the table settings for the Cal State Barbecues.

For members of the 60+ Club, it’s a labor of love. For CSUB, they’re invaluable.

The 60+ Club was founded in March 1986 as a service club for the university, a “partnership between the university and the community of retired persons,” and is “made up of persons from all walks of life who are concerned citizens, active, curious and with the time pursue life-long learning.”

The club provides assistance for such campus projects as the Facility for Animal Care and Treatment (FACT), the California Well Sample Repository, serving as timers and scorers at athletic events, maintaining the Walter Stiern Rose Garden, and ushering at performing-arts events. The club is open to anyone 60 years old or older, or retired.

“In the nearly 20 years the 60+ Club has been at Cal State they’ve provided countless hours of help for so many activities and operations here on campus,” said Jill Slaby, alumni relations director, under whose auspices the club exists. “They have a wonderful reputation both on campus and in the community. If it weren’t for the 60+ Club who knows what we’d do – they provide so much support.”

The club has been even more valuable during the last few years of the state budget crunch. CSUB, like all other state agencies, suffered severe cutbacks. “When you take the hours we put in as volunteers,” said club member Bob Waite, “those are hours that the university would have to hire someone in for. By us volunteering, the university was able to spend the money on classes and educational materials to benefit students.”

Waite speaks from experience: a club board member, he has “done a good deal of volunteering – in excess of 1,000 hours.”

In the past 18 years, said An Chamberlain, 60+ Club president, the club chalked up 42,000 hours of volunteering at CSUB.

“We’re ticket takers, program sellers, swim-meet timers,” she said. “We wrap plasticware for on and off-campus events.”

Through 60+ Club members’ commitment, the Todd Madigan Gallery is open on Saturdays during the gallery’s exhibits.

Sunny Scofield, one of nine founding members, remembers the early days of the club. She said that in 1985, a man named Chuck Jones “got a group together. He was looking for something to do, and had heard something about clubs such as this.”

Scofield said she talked to university officials, then traveled to San Francisco to talk to more people. In March 1986, “We had our first meeting, and 125 people showed up. We were stunned.

“It’s evolved over the years; it’s been a wonderful thing for the university and the seniors. We have great respect for each other, and this club has given us a chance to serve the university.”

Scofield said the 60+ Club attracts “a person with a lot of different interests and things to be involved with.”

But it means even more than that, she said. 

“I have often thought that you don’t know what it’s like to be disabled until you are, and you don’t know what it’s like to be a senior until you are. A lot of the people here have lost spouses. The club is more valuable and makes life more interesting for the members. There’s a lot of volunteerism that goes with it.”

Scofield has a long history with CSUB. “I knew Dr. (Paul) Romberg (CSUB’s first president), and appreciated his efforts to bring the university and the community together. Here in Bakersfield the campus and the community are so close. … It’s a mixture of people and community together.

A native of Austin, Texas, Scofield has lived in Bakersfield the past 50 years, and is retired from television. She produced and hosted a show for eight years called “Sunny Today.” She began her television career at KBAK Channel 29, then moved to KERO Channel 23.

In 1992, the 60+ Club was honored as the showcase university-based program nationally, and that’s largely due to the vision of the people here, Scofield thinks.

“The people in Bakersfield are in many ways far ahead of people in other areas, in terms of activities and projects,” she said. “People here are more farsighted, I think. You can be very proud of Bakersfield.”

Bob Waite has been a member of the 60+ Club for “12 or 13 years,” and admitted to being “an octogenarian.”

“It’s been an additional base of friends, and of satisfaction in helping the community by helping the university,” he said. “The club has made me feel wanted, like I was one of the family, accepted. It provides me an outlet for some of my creative talent.”

Waite, who smiles a lot, said he formed a group within the club called “Laughs Are Us,” which he kept going six years. “Once people got used to my brand of humor it was OK,” he said. “But I’ll tell you what: I didn’t have any church-ladies in my routine!” He laughed.

A third generation Californian who was born in Redlands, Waite worked in sales for most of his career. He was a company representative for Gaines Foods, maker of once-well-known dog-food brands Gainesbugers and Gravy Train. After the company was bought out, “I got on with the Campbell Soup Co., and was involved with a number of their brands – Vlassic Pickles, Lindsay Olives – they had about 40 products.

He retired to a local farm “where the last thing I was growing was hydrogen,” he said with a grin. “I was growing algae, which makes hydrogen.”

Chamberlain, a native of San Francisco who came to Bakersfield 23 years ago with her first husband who was in the oil business, has been a club fixture long before she turned 60. “Years ago, when I was in my mid-50s, I came out to ‘Possibilities Day,’” a full day of activities each fall when the club sets its agenda for the year and introduces new prospects to the many facets of the 60+ Club. Chamberlain was one of the first to join, before the club’s bylaws were written. And the first bylaw said members must be 60 or older. “I said, ‘I’m afraid I’ve already joined and paid my dues,’ so they said, OK, we’ll grandmother you in.”

The most important part of the 60+ Club, she said, “is the people. Although they’re older, they’re not ready to quit living. They keep active and keep busy.

“I like helping the university. The people I associate with – the faculty, staff – are a good group of people.”

As president, she said, her vision “is to continue to be a viable, thriving community for seniors that is a credit to the university. We do a lot now, but we could do more. I’d like to see us be even more of a credit to the university.”