What is the secret to a long and successful life?
As part of our series Aging Matters on Colorado Matters, we're asking some of Colorado's oldest residents what memories and experiences have been most meaningful over the years.
Here are their stories:
Colonel James Harvey, 101, on the importance of humor and laughing every day
Colonel James Harvey, 101, maintains a dry sense of humor which, along with sheer skill and determination, likely helped him surmount the obstacles he faced during his long life.
Harvey was initially rejected from the US military when he applied to be a pilot because he is Black, but he eventually achieved his childhood dream of becoming a fighter pilot. Harvey is known as one of an elite group of Tuskegee Airmen who were Black military pilots during World War II and beyond.
Colonel Harvey and a team of his fellow Tuskegee Airmen underscored their flying prowess when they won the first-ever Top Gun competition in Las Vegas in 1949. A year ago, Colonel Harvey was officially recognized for his military service with an honorary promotion to the rank of Colonel during halftime at a US Air Force Academy football game.
Harvey says his secret to a long life is: "Have a good sense of humor, have a good laugh every day and have a good belly laugh – fall on the floor laughing – at least once a month.”
Nancy Tipton, 101, on the phrase 'This too shall pass'
Nancy Tipton says all her life, she's been blessed. The 101-year-old great-grandmother lives at Holly Creek in Centennial.
As a young woman, she worked as a codebreaker during World War II and then at the Pentagon before moving to Colorado where she worked as a columnist for the Denver Post.
She shares her thoughts on longevity and optimism and her favorite saying: "This too shall pass."
Bill Powell, 102, on exercise and eating ice cream every day
Bill Powell, 102, has lived through seismic events, including the dropping of the atomic bomb, the Civil Rights movement and 9/11. And, he's played his own part in U.S. history as a pilot in the Air Force during World War II. Powell, who lives in Fort Collins, spent his career working in the public works department in Miami-Dade County, eventually becoming its director.
When he retired in the 1980s, county commissioners honored him by calling the new bridge connecting Miami to Key Biscayne, Florida the William M. Powell Bridge. He eventually moved to Fort Collins, where his daughter lives.
Powell said he lives by the philosophy: don't do anything senseless, have a good family, exercise every day and "have some ice cream every day."
