By DAVE SCHULTZ
The time has come for Bonnie Valind to say goodbye to the agency she’s led for more than three decades.
When the Wells County Council on Aging needed a new executive director in the late 1980s, Valind worked for Portland-based Community and Family Services. She applied and got the job.
Her interview with the board set the tone for what she found out she needed to do.
“I walked into that little office downtown and there was one room,” she said, referring to a space at the intersection of Walnut and Perry streets, “and there were 24 board members waiting to hear from me. There were no other staff members. I was the person who had to run it.”
She got the job and realized her first priority needed to be looking for funding sources to expand and make the group “a more viable organization for the seniors in our community.”
Chief among the programs that she put together was the Wells on Wheels program, which provides public transit for all residents of Wells County. When Bluffton Mayor John Whicker honored her on April 12 with a proclamation that made the day Bonnie Valind Day in the city, a second proclamation was read from the Indiana Department of Transportation honoring her for her efforts to create and maintain WoW.
“It became a community-wide transportation system and not just for seniors,” she said. It’s particularly significant now because public transit system could cut down the number of vehicles on the road and can make a big impact on the environment, she said.
Wells on Wheels got its start when she was looking for additonal services the Council on Aging could provide. She made a contact within INDOT and that led to a feasibility study. “The data was overwhelming that it was needed,” she said.
Valind has a unique personal style, something she just thinks is natural to her. She doesn’t really give it too much thought.
“I’m just most comfortable this way,” she said this week in an interview at the Council on Aging’s office. “To me, it describes more of my heart and soul. I like being creative and this is just part of it. To me, it just feels very natural. It’s comfortable to me.”
After retirement, she expects that she and her husband, Jeff, will live a typical retirement lifestyle — do some gardening at her Wells County home. She is a big nature buff, and there will be some involvement there. She will do some traveling — maybe even a lot of traveling.
“My husband and I have a military background,” she said. “My childhood was full of traveling from one Air Force base to another.” She was born in Chandler, Ariz., where her father was stationed at the Williams Air Force Base at the time.
“We have friends all over the United States,” she said. She wants to see the Grand Canyon again and return to Chandler.
“I suppose those are rather traditional retirement plans,” she said with a laugh.
Her last day will be next Friday, April 22. And then, it’s off to the next adventure.
daves@news-banner.com
