NICOA SCSEP – NATIONAL INDIAN COUNCIL ON AGING SENIOR COMMUNITY SERVICE EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM – is a federally funded program, serving the low-income job seeking population 55 and over. Arnetta Yancey, SCSEP Central Region Program Manager, NICOA stated: “The program offers paid on-the-job training, job search assistance, help in writing a resume and tips on improving interviewing skills. This is a four (4) year training program and is the only federal program for low-income U.S. citizens, age 55 and over. The program is administered by the U.S. Department of Labor under the authority of the Older Americans Act of 1965. The program is free to participants and host agencies.”
NICOA SCSEP participants provide community services for public agencies or nonprofit organizations providing much needed staff in the workplace. Positions are 20 hours per week at minimum wage. The NICOA SCSEP staff focuses on matching job seekers with agencies offering job training in their field of interest. Information on Job Fairs, mentoring, and counseling are available to all. Participants are offered the opportunity to take part in trainings provided by NICOA SCSEP and host agencies. These trainings include ESL, computer literacy, telephone systems and other skills specific to their field of interest and job assignments.
While many seniors need to work to supplement their income, others want the workplace camaraderie and personal fulfillment working provides. NICOA SCSEP is an organization which can help in either case. For seniors’ educational barriers may exist in getting a job in this fast-paced, ever changing work environment. Some may not have the skill sets applicable while physical limitations may prevent others from working in their previous jobs. Some career fields impacted include construction, oil field, plumbing, welding, waitressing or any field requiring physical strength and stamina. For other seniors, becoming proficient in technology skills needed in the workplace is the goal. Many seniors need training in using the internet, social media and computer programs, such as Word, Publisher or Excel.
The goal is for each trainee to find a job outside of the NICOA SCSEP program. In Oklahoma County, NICOA currently has 60 elders enrolled and have placed over 30% of the participants in employment. In 2018, NICOA partnered with more than 35 community agencies including The Salvation Army, Lottie’s House, Department of Veterans Affairs, Heartline 211 and Oklahoma County Senior Nutrition. Diane Maguire, North Coordinator for The Salvation Army, oversees the Warr Acres and Danforth Senior Centers, stated “NICOA SCSEP trainees have been a blessing in many ways for us at The Salvation Army Senior Centers. Having them be a part of the staff has given us the ability to do more for our seniors. Throughout their training I have watched them build skills that have enabled them to serve our senior citizens, ‘the golden generation,’ with both skill and love.”
Jacqueline Lewis, a former NICOA trainee, gave a pep talk and shared her success story with Paycheck Club participants in Oklahoma City. Jacci’s story: “When I applied to this program, I felt defeated. The job-hunting process has changed so much from the earlier years. Beginning with my very first host site to the last one, the things I learned were invaluable. This program teaches self-worth for the aging population that still wants to work. The staff will listen to your concerns and guide you in the best direction. They provide workshops and interview techniques along with the onsite training to better prepare you to reenter the work force. This program is a confidence builder that at 55+ you can step out and succeed. I am now employed full time thanks to this program. If you have barriers to employment start here for help in overcoming them and success in job search.”
Jacci joined NICOA SCSEP to prepare herself to be a viable candidate for employment. She wanted to enhance her skills, learn new processes and techniques, become proficient in computer programs in daily use. At NICOA SCSEP Jacci said she found all of this and more; “The moral support, guidance, advice and workshops kept me on target and focused.” She has been full-time employed for over 18 months and loves having a meaningful job.
If you are looking for a way to learn, develop and refine marketable skills call NICOA SCSEP to learn of your options. NICOA SCSEP provides the opportunity for paid training, meaningful community service, skills development and a great support network.
Ms. Yancey stated: “Our elders have so much experience and knowledge to contribute we must give them viable options. NICOA SCSEP offers options. Contact our office at 405-254-3642”.

Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation scientist Rizwan Qaisar has been awarded an Irene Diamond Fund/AFAR Postdoctoral Transition Award in Aging.
The award, presented by the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) with support from the Irene Diamond Fund, will provide $120,000 in flexible transitional funding to Qaisar, who is researching age-related muscle loss called sarcopenia at OMRF. Postdocs are individuals conducting research after finishing their doctoral studies and are pursuing further training and a well-defined career path.
AFAR is a leading nonprofit dedicated to advancing healthy aging through biomedical research. The goal of this program, according to AFAR, is to provide portable and flexible transitional funding for senior postdoctoral fellows as they develop and negotiate for faculty positions and research programs. The award provides full-time research training and grant support.
Founded in 1981, AFAR has awarded more than $175 million in grants to investigators and students across the U.S., Ireland, Israel, Italy and the United Kingdom.
“By giving these postdoctoral fellows this extra boost at a critical moment in their career path, AFAR is helping create a research pipeline that is essential to advancing better therapies for age-related diseases and discoveries that will help us all live healthier and longer,” said Jeremy Walston, M.D., Chair of the 2017 Selection Committee for the Irene Diamond Fund/AFAR Postdoctoral Transition Awards in Aging.
At OMRF, Qaisar works in the Aging and Metabolism Research Program with under the guidance of Program Chair Holly Van Remmen, Ph.D. looking specifically at the role of oxidative stress, or free radicals, in the long-term deterioration of muscle. Qaisar researches potential interventions for the disease pathways for sarcopenia, specifically the activation of the SERCA ATPase.
Qaisar earned his Ph.D. at the University of Uppsala, Sweden. His academic focus was looking at the mechanisms of muscle aging, and evaluating potential therapies to counter age-related weakness and muscle loss.
“I am extremely grateful and honored to receive this award,” said Qaisar. “This funding will provide me with a real opportunity to push my research forward and make a difference for our aging population.”

by Bobby Anderson, Staff Writer

Excitement is buzzing up and down the halls at Village on the Park in Oklahoma City.
The retirement community is atwitter over what is expected to be the blockbuster event of the summer – the wedding of residents Ann Trumbly and Bud Barker.
“He caught me in a weak moment,” the 84-year-old Trumbly smiled when asked what led to the upcoming August ceremony.
Both currently reside in separate cottages at Village on the Park and each lost spouses in the past.
Neither ever dreamed they would remarry.
“We just clicked, we really did,” Barker said. “We weren’t expecting it but it happened.”
The couple’s first official date came last October when a group of Village on the Park travelers went to Royal Bavaria restaurant in Moore to celebrate Octoberfest.
For weeks Barker had been telling Marketing Director Karen Proctor that he planned on “bringing a friend” but declined to say who it was.
“And forever they were just going to be friends,” Proctor said, unfolding the story.
The couple agreed to go out once a week for dinner. One week Trumbly would pay, the next Barker would pick up the check.
“Somewhere along the way they shocked me,” Proctor said. “They’re both educated. They both love music and they both just love talking to each other.”
A few months ago the couple pulled Proctor aside to tell her the big news.
“I just cried and cried and cried,” Proctor said. “I was shocked. They had kept saying over and over it was nice to have a good friend.”
But both agreed it was great to have a best friend again.
EVERYONE’S ABUZZ
“Everybody’s so excited,” Proctor said. “We’ve had residents who have gone and bought dresses – even though it’s going to be super casual.” Everybody feels a part of it because they knew them with their other spouses and were so sad when their spouses passed away.
“It’s been fun to see them have so much fun.”
Cake and punch will be served back at Village on the Park.
“Real simple. That was Ann’s orders,” Proctor said.
She helped the bride-to-be shop for a wedding dress – all without ever leaving Village on the Park, helping Trumbly navigate the Internet for the perfect gown that was delivered to her house.
“They’ve got about 50 flower girls,” Proctor joked.
Barker swears he’s not nervous.
“Everybody has been fantastic, they really have,” Barker said. “Our children – she has a son and daughter and I have a son and daughter – and they’re all tickled to death. They could see we needed somebody.”
The couple doesn’t plan on registering anywhere, in fact, it might be the first wedding in history where guests receive all of the gifts.
The bride and groom are currently trying to downsize their respective cottages so that they may move in with each other after the wedding.
Once the nuptials are complete the two will fly down to Ft. Lauderdale to embark on a Caribbean cruise honeymoon.
But do the two have any skinny-dipping plans?
“I don’t know about that yet,” the 87-year-old Barker laughed. “Age is funny.”
Both are excited for the date to finally get here later this month.
They say planning – even a simple ceremony – doesn’t get any easier the second time around.
“Sometimes I wonder how we’re going to get through this. It’s not the marrying him (part) it’s about all the stuff you have to go through,” Trumbly said.
Trumbly has always been sort of a mother-figure for Proctor so it was Proctor who sat the couple down early just to make sure they had their bases covered.
The two had already discussed it with their respective families. A Sunday compromise was struck, with the couple attending Trumbly’s Catholic mass on Saturday nights and Barker’s Baptist church on Sundays.
Barker says he may be getting the better end of the deal, especially since Trumbly’s cottage has a washer and dryer as well as a covered carport for his Lincoln.
“There’s a lot of advantages for me, I don’t know about her,” he teased.
But the groom has shown he may be handy in the kitchen.
“I fixed her a bacon and tomato sandwich last night,” he said with pride. “Someone gave us a real nice tomato out of the garden and we stole some bread and bacon out of the kitchen and I cooked it in my room.”
It’s moments like those both were missing.
And they never expected to find them again.
“This is a marvelous place here. Everybody here is family,” Barker said.

by Bobby Anderson, Staff Writer

On Monday, April 29, Bill Burrows showed up for his regular 2:30-11 p.m. shift at the engineering plant at Norman Regional Health System just like has been doing for the previous five years.
A little stiff, a little sore, Burrows went on about his day like always.
Not bad for a 68-year-old who had just run a half marathon with half a lung.
“It was pretty good,” Burrows said. “Kind of the first time out so I didn’t know how I would do. I was kind of optimistic so I wouldn’t know until I did it.
“It went well. The temperature was good and I moved along pretty well considering my physical condition.”
Not bad at all considering just three years earlier he was staring a lung cancer diagnosis right in the face.
BUMP IN THE ROAD
The Norman resident and Norman Regional Health System employee, trained this past winter for the Oklahoma City Memorial Half Marathon—his longest run since conquering lung cancer.
Burrows previously completed six full marathons and three half marathons before his lung cancer in 2016.
He has since ran one 5K this past fall but nothing like the distance he covered the final Sunday in April.
Burrows was diagnosed with lung cancer after seeing one of Norman Regional’s internal promotions for their $79 lung scan. The low-dose computed tomography (CT) scan is a noninvasive and painless way to screen for lung cancer.
Burrows said he decided to have the scan since it was a good price and would only take about 10 minutes.
Since he was a healthy runner he expected no problems to show on the scan, but his doctor called and said he wanted to have a specialist look it over just to make sure everything was fine.
Burrows had a stroke in 2010 and made it back from that so he figured this was nothing.
“I got it and they saw something,” he said. “I had a previous scan years before and this wasn’t there then.”
Burrows met with Norman Regional’s interventional pulmonary specialist Sergio Garcia, MD.
A biopsy was taken which revealed he had non-small cell carcinoma.
Soon after the news, Burrows was contacted by Norman Regional’s oncology nurse navigator Sherri Jo Johnson, R.N, who explained his diagnosis, the steps to deal with it and helped guide him throughout the treatment process.
Next Burrows had surgery to remove the top right lobe of his lung and became cancer free. Since the cancer was detected before it spread anywhere else in his body, Burrows did not need further treatment such as radiation or chemotherapy.
“Mr. Burrows is a prime example of why the lung screening program offered at Norman Regional Health System is very important,” Dr. Garcia said. “It provides early detection. This one simple scan saved his life.”
“I knew I would run again,” said Burrows, who helps maintain the system’s infrastructure. “I knew some day I was going to run from my house back to room 5207 at the Healthplex and back. That was a goal. The first year or so I was afraid to do too much because I didn’t want to blow anything up.”
When Burrows decided he wanted to run another half marathon, he knew it wouldn’t be easy.
Functionally, 50% of his total lung capacity remained.
Things would have to advance slowly.
He bought a $50 used treadmill and set it up at his house. He’d run for a few minutes, walk for a few more.
His main reasoning for wanting to push himself to run another half marathon and full marathons in the future is that he wants to do it for those who can’t—those who are going through chemotherapy, those who have a terminal diagnosis, and those who were unable to conquer their cancer.
After hearing about Burrows’ desire to run the half marathon, Dr. Garcia, Cardiothoracic Surgeon Kyle Toal, MD; Chief Nursing Officer Brittni McGill and Norman Regional’s Pulmonary Rehabilitation staff came together to provide Burrows an exercise plan and offer him the support he needed to ensure he was able to run safely.
Part of his exercise plan was monthly visits to Dr. Garcia’s office for cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) – a non-invasive procedure where a patient uses a treadmill while monitored by their physician or a respiratory therapist.
“I’m addicted again,” said Burrows, who plans on running the full marathon next April.
Quitting was never an option for the the Navy vet and New Jersey-born Burrows.
“I didn’t have the breath but it seemed like my muscles and legs were working,” he said. “I wasn’t going to stop. I just went mile by mile.”
One by one the miles added up as Burrows was counting them down.
“I’ll keep going,” Burrows said. “I refuse to get old.”

Salmeron career a combination of nursing and education

by Traci Chapman, Staff Writer

Oklahoma City University Dean of the Kramer School of Nursing Lois Salmeron has ascended the heights during her life – as a nurse, an educator, a wife and mother and as a professional who successfully navigated a journey few women of her generation did.
“I have always wanted to be a nurse – my father encouraged me to go into medicine,” Salmeron said. “However, in those days to combine being married and having a family for women was a rarity.”
Despite that fact, the young woman decided to follow her instincts – Salmeron first attending nursing school at St. Francis Hospital in Wichita, Kansas. Graduating in 1962, she and her husband married while she was a nursing student and he was completing his residency in anesthesiology.
With a diploma from St. Francis that allowed Salmeron to pass the state board and become a registered nurse, her first staff position was in the maternity acute care unit of the hospital where she attended nursing school. But, while she had a good start at the Wichita facility, it was only the start.
Her path veered in a different direction when Salmeron’s husband was offered a staff position at then-Baptist Hospital; the couple and their two children moved to Oklahoma City. It was after that move that Salmeron’s career really began to blossom.
She began her Oklahoma healthcare career as a staff nurse in Deaconess Hospital’s labor-delivery and mother-baby units – and, later, as nurse educator for Deaconess personnel hospital-wide.
That position showed yet another facet of nursing that would become a passion – education. That would be very important in the late 1960s when Mercy Hospital approached Oklahoma State University-OKC with a proposal.
It was a time when, like with Salmeron’s own experience, hospitals were the source of nurse education. Mercy’s idea to transfer its program to OSU-OKC helped spur a major change in the way nurses would obtain their degrees, and Lois Salmeron would be on the forefront of that movement.
“I was one of the first three faculty to begin that program,” she said. It was a program she would remain with for more than three decades, the last nine of her 31 years at OKC-OSU as division head of health services. While there, Salmeron also in the late 1980s spearheaded a nursing distance learning system for the Oklahoma panhandle area and based at OSU-OKC.
The now established nursing educator never stopped learning herself. Salmeron earned bachelor’s and masters of science degrees from University of Oklahoma; she obtained a master’s of arts in teaching at Oklahoma City University and Oklahoma State University Doctorate of Education with adult education focus.
In 2001, Salmeron was at a turning point, however. She retired from OSU-OKC, but the ongoing nursing shortage convinced her to remain in the field. Oklahoma City University’s Kramer School of Nursing had room to grow – and a place for Salmeron to help it do just that. For four years, she served as an adjunct professor, but that was far from the extent of her contribution to OCU.
“As KSN was growing in numbers of nursing students, I was asked to apply for the assistant dean position – I was chosen for that position in July 2005,” Salmeron said. “I advanced to be the associate dean in two years.”
When the dean took a semester off in the spring of 2013, Salmeron was named senior associate dean in charge. In June, when longtime Dean Marvel Williamson retired from the college, Salmeron was appointed interim dean.
Salmeron became Kramer School of Nursing Dean in January 2014, becoming responsible for the entire nursing department – “budget, enrollment, recruitment of students and faculty, hiring staff and faculty, working with the other schools on campus, service to the university and the community, fund raising for the department, strategic planning, awareness of state and national guidelines that must be followed for approval and national accreditation, continuing education for faculty and staff, maintaining a positive culture for faculty, staff and students to succeed,” Salmeron said. “These are just some of the responsibilities of the dean.”
While her position meant a full spectrum of responsibilities, it didn’t diminish the dean’s love of nursing and teaching – something she said she didn’t want to completely relinquish. She therefore chose to retain a part of what brought her to Oklahoma City University in the first place.
“I teach one PhD course every Fall semester called Nursing Education Administration,” the dean said. “It is rewarding and challenging to work with these adult students sharing some of the components of what is required to lead a nursing education program.”
Salmeron’s wide-ranging experience has served her – and the college – well. Last year, OCU began a distance learning program in Duncan that harkened back to her 1980s panhandle experience.
Like much of Salmeron’s career, the Duncan program is just one of several milestones of the past that have inspired achievements in the present. And, Salmeron herself has been a source of inspiration for thousands of students who know how much she has achieved in a world very different from today’s nursing opportunities – and her work has spurred countless awards, including the Distinguished Professional Service Award from the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses, a nonprofit aimed at promoting the health of women and newborns.
Salmeron was also the first nurse to ever receive the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ Graham White Award and was in 2003 inducted into the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame.
Salmeron has achieved as much in her personal life as she has in her profession – she and her husband have been married for 57 years and live in the home they built and moved into in 1968. The couple has three grown children who understood their mother’s education advocacy – a son and daughter are PhDs, while a second son earned his MBA and has his own financial management company. His siblings are a researcher in plant molecular biology and a clinical psychologist in private practice.
“My husband grows orchids, has his own greenhouse, is retired, but supports my passion of educating the next generation of nurses,” Salmeron said.
At 77, while many people would be looking to slow down or take an easier path, those around her said Salmeron shows no sign of doing that. Juggling a myriad of responsibilities at work, the dean also gives back to the community – she volunteers on several state and national nursing committees and serves on several boards, including Mercy, Oklahoma City-County Health Department and Oklahoma Higher Education Heritage Society; she is also an Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing peer reviewer.
Salmeron’s hands on approach shines through in all of her endeavors – her work, charitable and volunteer endeavors and her personal life – and it’s something illustrated by her view of the school and its culture, what she called the Kramer Way.
“My priority at KSN is to create the positive culture in which the faculty and staff can guide the nursing students to be successful and ready for the professional responsibilities that they will have,” Salmeron said. “The Kramer Way means we all try to live a life that values caring, kindness and respect.”

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