100-Year-Old Journalist Has No Plans to Retire

By Matt Haber 9/24/08 2:36pm

Meet Mildred Heath, "America’s Oldest Worker" according to a press release from Experience Works. In what is surely a joke about the future of newspapers, Ms. Heath, age 100, is a reporter for the Nebraska Beacon Observer (no relation to this paper), which lists her as its "Overton Correspondent."

Last year, Ms. Heath, who was apparently a code breaker during WWII and is an avid skillet-tosser, was also the subject of another release that touted her under the slightly downbeat headline "At 99 Years Old, Mildred Heath Still Can’t Escape Nine-to-Five." The Omaha World-Herald‘s Paul Hammel profiled her in January. Ms. Heath told him, "I enjoy the work. And I’m needed."

According to the release, Ms. Heath has been involved in the newspaper business since 1929, when she and her husband purchased a paper called The Farnam Echo. And to all you recent J-school grads hoping to land her gig, it looks like Ms. Heath’s job isn’t opening anytime soon:

At age 100 plus, despite the fact that she has outlived her three daughters and has four grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild, Mrs. Heath has no plans for retirement and talks about all the things she wants to do, at work and at home.

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topics: Mildred Heath, The Media Mob
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