Sharon Shellhorn:

After graduating from Princess Anne, I attended Colorado State University, graduating with a degree in sociology. While at CSU, I met my future husband, Gary, and together we have two children and 3 grandchildren.

My working career began as a social worker, working with families and children. In the 1980’s I helped develop, supervise and provide state-wide training for a community-based case management program for seniors in the state of Oklahoma. Still moving often due to my husband’s employer, I next became the director of the Retired Senior Volunteer Program for Orange County and then moved on to become the operations director of Feedback Foundation, Inc. a large nonprofit organization in Orange County, California. Programs for seniors at Feedback included operating 29 congregate meal sites, case management and homemaking programs for seniors, operating a central kitchen producing over 2,000 meals five days a week to serve home delivered meal recipients as well as the congregate meal sites. In addition Feedback operated two Adult Day Health Care Programs and one Adult Day Care Program. These were busy, long days but fulfilling. Cooking on a large scale and developing large community events were the norm, besides trying to keep money flowing.

In 1996 I quit my “paid” (always questionable in not-for-profits) positions and returned to the world of volunteering. I worked with grade school children in the classroom, began and operated a library in a Missouri grade school, helped with a crisis line, currently volunteering at our local public library and now am very active in the international program of American Association of University Women. Still being drawn to my social work background, I now mentor women who are nontraditional women students returning or beginning college and work with a program to provide encouragement to teenage girls in their educational endeavors.

I have resided in many states since graduation from high school, including Colorado, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Georgia twice, Missouri, Oklahoma, California three times, and now we are retired to Prescott, Arizona. My husband and I have square danced all over the U.S. and even in Austria but now the knees and back don’t allow. I remain busy with friends, RV travel, gardening, reading and multiple community volunteer programs.