Centenarian Gershon Schulman

Centenarian Gershon Schulman is honored by UK Sanders-Brown Center on Aging's Foundation.

Schulman served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and subsequent to that he received a master's degree in special education and administration from South Connecticut State University. He taught social studies and special education and became an assistant supervisor of special education, and acting principal of the special education center in Bridgeport, Conn. He also owned the Guilford Economy Market.

He left his New England home to be close to his son in Versailles and had to place his wife in a nursing home soon after because he could no longer care for her alone. Schulman went to the nursing home three times a day and during the summer he would swim laps in his son's pool. After 74 years of marriage, his wife died.

Schulman is very active to be almost 101 years old. He belongs to the Versailles-Woodford County Parks and Recreation's Falling Springs Arts and Recreation Center and still swims four times a week in the indoor pool.

Nominator Richard Pictor, director of the center, says, "Gershon has become the inspiration for many of our members. We hear it all the time from other seniors who say 'if Gershon can do it, so can I.'"

Schulman is active at the Woodford County Senior Citizens Center and volunteers to help out for almost anything.

According to nominator Woodford County Judge-Executive John Coyle, "the benevolence of Mr. Schulman continues today. He tutors a student twice a week, and serves dinner at the Hope Center in Lexington twice monthly. In addition to his kind and generous heart, Mr. Schulman is still teaching all of us you are never too old to have fun. To the dismay of men much younger than him, he won the 'Hot Legs' contest in 2008 at the Woodford County Fair."