Honoring Ecumen’s Longest Tenured Employee: Dawn Bolhuis, LPN, Kindhearted and Compassionate Nurse
Nurse Dawn Bolhuis, Ecumen's longest tenured employee, can't wait to start her next shift, and the residents she cares for can't wait to see her.
Oscar Contender 'Still Alice' Dramatically Captures Alzheimer’s
Critics are raving about the movie “Still Alice” and Julianne Moore’s compelling performance as a 50-year-old mother, wife and college professor who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s.
Ecumen Century Club: Happy 100th Birthday Eleanore Ebeling
Ecumen honors Eleanore Ebeling, a resident of Ecumen Meadows in Worthington, Minn.,who is 100.
Top 5 Blog Posts — January 12
Did you miss last week’s most-read Changing Aging blog posts? Here's what Ecumen’s online visitors found most interesting...
Ecumen Century Club: Happy 100th Birthday Evelyn Larson
Ecumen honors Evelyn Larson, a resident of Ecumen Evergreens of Fargo, who is 100.
BYU Radio Explores Awakenings in Interview with Ecumen Nurses
Brigham Young University's Morning Show featured a 30-minute interview with Ecumen nurses about the Ecumen Awakenings program.
Shelley Matthes, RN, Director of Quality Improvement, and Maria Reyes, RN, Awakenings Project Director, were interviewed live on the air Wednesday about the history and accomplishments of the program in reducing the use of antipsychotic medications on dementia patients. The interview is at this link and begins about 5 minutes into the program.
The Morning Show is heard on the BYU Campus and online around the world by students, alumni and friends of the University. The station broadcasts to a nationwide audience of more than 56 million listeners on SiriusXM satellite radio, mobile apps and Dish TV Network. Learn more at http://www.byuradio.org/about.
An Extraordinary Act of Appreciation and Generosity at Ecumen Seasons at Apple Valley
A family of two residents at Seasons at Apple Valley expressed their heartfelt appreciation to every staff member in a most unusual way.
Ecumen Executive Receives 2014 Employer of the Year Award From State Food Service Association
Carol Kvidt, Ecumen Regional Director of Operations, was awarded the 2014 Employer of the Year by the Association of Nutrition and Food Service Professionals State Association (ANFP) for her work with the dining staff at Ecumen Bethany Community in Alexandria, Minn.
The award was based on Kvidt’s personal contact and support of the dining staff, encouragement of continuing education and training, creative scheduling, resident satisfaction in dining, and dining enhancements made at Ecumen Bethany Community.
Val Jerzak, Director of Dining Services at Ecumen Bethany Community, nominated Kvidt stating: “Carol is an outstanding leader. She teaches leadership principals and techniques by example. Carol has a focus of resident-centered care and is hands on with creating a new way to serve our residents.”
Kvidt previously worked as the executive director of the Ecumen Bethany Community.
Ecumen Centennial House Resident Charles Hearn Went To Battle on the Silver Screen
Charles (Chuck) Hearn was a good soldier who took a few bullets over the years. He was always comfortable on the battlefield — a place where he could feel connected to the memory of his relatives who fought in the Civil War.
If you’ve watched any of the epic Civil War movies of the last 40 years, you might have seen Charles in the battle scenes. He was in “Dances With Wolves,” “Glory” and the TV movies “North and South,” “The Blue and the Gray,” and “The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd.” A strong sense of history drew him to his hobby of Civil War reenactments as a member of the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry reenactment group.
Now, at his home at Ecumen Centennial House in Apple Valley, Charles has thick photo albums of his years working on movie sets with famous actors such as Kevin Costner, Dennis Weaver and Patrick Swayze. He can talk at length about how the sets were designed and how the battles were choreographed, flipping through years and years of pictures. He is a stickler for detail and proud that his unit went to great lengths to make sure their uniforms and gear were authentic.
That commitment to authenticity put them in high demand for Civil War movies back in the 1980s. Charles, who worked as truck driver, would spend his vacations on movies sets in South Dakota, Georgia and Louisiana. And on weekends, he worked as a gate guard at Fort Snelling in Minneapolis.
Charles actual military experience was not as exciting. He volunteered for the U.S. Army in 1954, the year he graduated from Washburn High School in Minneapolis, and was sent to Korea. By this time, the Korean War was over and his active duty was fairly mundane, which was fine with him. “I’d hate getting shot at for real.”
Charles gave up his reenactment hobby a few years ago, but his memories are lasting. “I enjoyed this tremendously,” he says.
Charles gets Kevin Costner's autograph on the set of Dances With Wolves
Kevin Costner poses with members of the First Volunteer Infantry reenactment group. Charles is standing right behind Costner.
Star Tribune Article Features Ecumen’s Efforts To Change the Language of Aging
So much of the terminology around growing old carries negative connotations, and Baby Boomers are pushing back with a “war on words.” Star Tribune reporter Jackie Crosby examines how the huge economic power of older adults is making marketers take greater care in how they characterize aging.
Crosby’s story begins with Ecumen CEO Katherine Roberts candidly discussing the difficulty of purging the offensive words – because changing the words is really about changing culture.
Older adults, Roberts says, are “the last group or class of citizens in this country that we say it’s OK to institutionalize and it’s OK to marginalize — in advertisements, movies and popular culture.”