HANCEVILLE, Ala. – Longtime Wallace State Wellness Center client Bobbie Messersmith was surprised by her volleyball teammates on her 90th birthday on July 17. The teams presented her with a volleyball-shaped cake and a long-sleeved T-shirt proclaiming her “Volleyball Queen” with her name and the number 90.
“They really surprised me,” said Messersmith, who has been coming the Wallace State to exercise since 1993. She started by walking around campus and then enrolled in the Wellness Center, where she continues to take stretching classes and play volleyball three times a week.
Messersmith, of Phelan, said a friend encouraged her to come to Wallace State to exercise after she retired from Cullman Products. Since she was just sitting around the house with nothing else to do, she took up the invitation and hasn’t looked back since.
Mary Leah Moss, who heads up the senior program at the Wellness Center, met Messersmith in 1995 when she started working at Wallace State. Moss said that Messersmith is an inspiration to her and others who come to the Wellness Center. “If I can keep exercising, I hope I can live as long a life as she has lived,” Moss said.
“You should come down to Wallace if you want to become 90,” Messersmith said with a laugh.
The Wallace State Wellness center is open to the public. Fees are $34 a semester for those 50 and up in the fall and spring ($25 in the summer), $25 a semester for Wallace State students, and $50 a semester for general membership. The Wellness Center has weights, workout equipment such as treadmills and stationary bikes, and exercise classes.
