If there is such a thing as "limelight" in the world of Macon County senior citizens, then Anna Dean Carter has been hogging it for the past eighteen years.

The long-time county commissioner and civic activist modestly describes her role as  "just one of the board of directors" for the Senior Citizens Center, but the center's Director, Lorie Wright says Anna Dean is "one of the people, who if we need to get something done, I can depend on her to do it."

The "1st Thursday" lunch, prepared and served by the center's staff and board of directors, was the brainchild of Ms. Anna Dean and Ms. Mavis Chamberlain, another long-time board member and driving force for senior activities in Macon County.

"We took the idea from the old fable about 'stone soup,'" says Ms. Anna Dean, recalling the charming story about the traveler who entered an unknown village and asked for food to ease his hunger.

The villagers said that they too were hungry, and had nothing to give, so the traveler shyly asked if they would lend him a pot and some firewood. The traveler boiled water with a stone retrieved from his pocket, and sniffing he air, commented, "What wonderful soup; if I only had an onion to add for flavor!"

The story continues with a familiar tale of cooperation which results in small contributions of many vegetables, and then a few scraps of meat, and then salt and pepper and spices, until the soup, finally ready, feeds the entire hungry village, the traveler included.

"Our daily attendance was low, years ago when we started the "stone soup" lunch on the first Thursday. Now we regularly feed up to sixty people who come for the lunch, and on special occasions like Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners, we'll have up to one hundred come." For those special occasions they must bring out the card tables and the folding chairs, and this fact only points out the need for a larger, permanent facility for the Macon County Senior Citizens center.

"With the space we have now, there are a limited number of activities we can offer," says center director Lorie Wright, who has been in that key position for about four years now. "I spend more time awake, here, than I do at home, so when I'm here I want to have fun and share a good time with the seniors who come in," she adds.

There are a number of regular activities the center does offer, but some of them must be scheduled at the Bill Speck and Sally Wells buildings at the county fairgrounds due to space limitations at the center on the Hwy. 52 by-pass, East.

Good sized crowds of elderly folks show up for bingo on the 2nd and 4th Thursday each month, and a once-a-month dance is usually set for the third Friday at the Sally Wells Building.

"We have different activities for different age groups of seniors," explains Lorie, "with cards and bingo for the more sedentary folks, and billiards (pool) for the more active. It would be great if we had room for both indoor and outdoor walking tracks and a basketball hoop, and right now we are in the process of organizing exercise classes," the director added.

Anna Dean Carter and the other board members have been working for nearly twenty years to get adequate funding for a permanent, larger Senior Citizens Center in Macon County. "We have lots of people who graduated from high school here in the 1950's, went away for industrial or professional careers, and are returning home to Macon County to retire---people are retiring earlier, and they want to stay active, and we need to be able to offer these people something fun to do," says Ms. Anna Dean.

Many older folks who've traveled through here liked what they saw, and the friendly local people they met, and eventually want to settle into retirement living in this beautiful, quiet part of Tennessee, away from the traffic and rat race of the bigger cities. 

"People who are searching for a pleasant place to retire say they are looking for good fishing, golf, nice restaurants and quiet neighborhoods. We already have a lot of that to offer, but our Senior Center needs to grow and expand to meet the needs of this younger generation of retired people," says the long time county commissioner, who  herself retired in 1998 after 30 years as bookkeeper for the Macon-Trousdale Farmers Coop.

The quest for adequate funding for a permanent center has been an elusive goal for Ms. Anna Dean and the other senior activists on the board. Some $20,000 in seed money garnered by Doyle Gaines nearly decade ago when he was county judge-executive has been recently supplemented by a large amount of "found" money in the form of unused infrastructure funding of over $130,000 that came with bringing the Nestle Waters plant to Red Boiling Springs.

The county commission, with the urging of retiring county mayor Glen Donoho, decided to dedicate this considerable amount of money to the Senior Citizens Center building fund. Nestle generously relinquished any claim on the excess matching funding they had initially provided, and said they would be very pleased to see it go to as worthy a purpose as a permanent Senior Citizens Center for Macon County.

But for the present the seniors continue to share space with UCHRA, the job center and several other state and community agencies. There is now much greater promise, however, that through the tireless efforts of people like Anna Dean Carter, the staff and other members of the board of directors, a larger, new and independent Senior Citizens Center will soon become a reality in Macon County.

[For a monthly calender of Senior Center activities go by the center, located next to the Health Department on Hwy. 52-East. For more information call 666-3780. They'll be happy to inform you of all available services, accept your contributions or direct your energy toward volunteer work, if you wish to be of help]