Time for a fresh page

Second act? Second chance? Reinvent? Whatever you want to call it, Bob Johnson says everyone should go for it. It has proven to be a great idea for him. His second act is writing and he has been honored for his work.

Bob lives in South Bend and worked at WSBT for 30 years as the operations manager and worked in marketing and productions. He is married to retired news anchor Cindy Ward.

As things happen, it was time to retire and look at the possibilities of the next phase of life. “Every New Year’s Eve, I made the resolution to get back to writing,” he said. That lasted about a week.

Retirement gave him the chance to get back into the writing habit. Bob has an undergraduate degree from Goshen College and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. “Due to life, career, kids, I pretty much stopped writing for more than 30 years.”

He was teaching at Ivy Tech Community College and lamenting to a few students about wanting to write more. “We were eating at Logan’s (Roadhouse), where there are buckets of peanuts on the tables. Someone at the table said ‘Write about these nuts.’ That really fired me up. I wrote a short story called ‘These Nuts.’”

And he hasn’t stopped since. He recently won the Marguerite McGlinn Prize in Fiction for Philadelphia Stories magazine. His short story “Bird Fever” was selected from 400 entries. Bob was flown to Philadelphia for an award ceremony and a $2,000 prize.

He was also invited to the Bread Loaf Writers Conference in Vermont. The prestigious event is closely associated with Robert Frost. “It was a chance to be immersed in the craft, be critiqued.”

This has been a great second act. “It is never too late. OK, it is too late to pitch in the majors.” However, writing is doable.

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William “Pat” Shelton was recently honored for his hard work and keeping it safe. He is a professional driver for Holland Trucking and he has driven 3 million miles without a single preventable collision. He is one of 13 active Holland drivers who have reached this safety milestone.

Pat has been a professional driver for 34 years and he has been with Holland for 22 years. He logs more than 2,700 miles per week on his route between South Bend and Cleveland.

He was saluted recently at the Holland South Bend service center by Scott Ware, Holland president.

Pat received a trophy, a ring, a leather jacket and a custom 3-million-miler decal for his truck.

Write to Kathy at kfborlik@yahoo.com.