People
A Fresh Start
Retired teacher JoAnn Kenner never planned on becoming a “health nut,” but she wanted to do something good for her body. “I was stressed out over the holidays, so I tried a detox diet that required two days of eating only raw foods,” Kenner said.
“I enjoyed the food and I felt so good afterward,” she says. Kenner then signed up for raw food classes, where she learned how to prepare meals without cooking, which often destroys the valuable enzymes that our bodies need. “It’s harder the older you get to go without those enzymes,” she says. “It’s like your body needs all your energy to digest that food.” Kenner, who taught fifth-grade language arts, was astounded by the health benefits of a raw food diet. In addition to the nutritional gains, the diet has also been instrumental in helping her lose weight—she reports shedding 25 pounds effortlessly thanks to eating raw foods.
After being certified in Raw Culinary Chef Training in 2009, Kenner took additional steps. First, she revamped her kitchen by tossing her pots and pans—even the microwave. She replaced those items with a high speed blender, a food processor, and a mandoline to prepare vegetables. Kenner’s favorite raw dishes include a walnut pâté stuffed into marinated mushrooms, as well as a fresh fruit sorbet. She looks forward to creating new raw meals. “It’s become a passion,” she says. While Kenner enjoys hosting raw food potluck parties for her friends, she admits that she is open to all types of food, whether it’s raw or cooked. “I’m a flexitarian,” she says. In the future, Kenner, who is vice chair of the Illinois Education Association-Retired, would like to teach her cooking skills to other people as a trainer or coach.
—Jazzy Wright
PHOTOS: ALEXANDER GARCIA
Big Fun in Small Trains
A world of new experiences opened to Letha McCoy after retirement—a trip to the Grand Canyon, helicopter rides, museum stops, shopping excursions, even a rafting voyage down the Colorado River. And it was all made possible by her husband Gary’s new hobby: “live steam,” or building, riding, and displaying reduced-scale steam engines.
McCoy, who taught first grade for 30 years in Burleson, Texas, doesn’t build or conduct the trains, but she assists with tasks like painting and loves to ride along in the passenger cars.
“I have learned a great deal about trains in the past 10 years. I’m much more knowledgeable,” McCoy says.
McCoy’s interest in trains has even inspired her to take part in other train-related activities. A recent trip by the Texas Retired Teachers Association president and other TRTA members to Washington, D.C., for an NEA convention included a stop in Baltimore to visit the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum, for example.
But travel isn’t anything new to McCoy. She and her husband have traveled as far as Kansas and Arizona for train meets where groups of as many as 250 enthusiasts gather in the spring and fall to show off their trains and ride them on the miles-long tracks. Train meets outside of Texas are often expanded into full-fledged vacations, the most recent being a trip last year from a meet in Phoenix, Arizona, to the Grand Canyon.
At home, McCoy and her husband are members of Houston Area Live Steamers, Southwestern Live Steamers, and Maricopa Live Steamers, where they build relationships with others who share a love for their hobby and participate in activities like offering “live steam” rides to the general public free of charge.
“To see the children’s smiles is something pretty special.”
—Erica Addison
PHOTO: COURTESY L. MCCOY
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