Retirement is obviously boring for Rachel Haynes.

After working at the old General Hospital, she tried retirement, but that didn't last long.

She opened her own beauty shop in 1947 and kept her beauty operator's license until 1993.

As the North Avondale woman approaches her 100th birthday on Thursday, she maintains a daily regimen that includes shopping on Wednesday, washing on Thursday, cooking for a week for herself on Friday and paying bills on Saturday.

And there is one day in the schedule where she said she "just messes around."

Haynes was born in Danville, Ky. She came to Cincinnati in 1908, where she attended Jackson Colonies School For Colored Children and the Harriet Beecher Stowe Middle School.

She later attended the Old Woodward High School, where she was a classmate of the late Theodore M. Berry, Cincinnati's first black mayor.

"He was very smart," Haynes remembers. "He was the first black student to give the valedictorian speech at Music Hall."

She reminisces about those days when she would get up at 5 a.m. and catch a street car from the West End to the hospital, where she started work at 7 a.m.

Catching a streetcar became boring, too, so she bought herself a 1932 Ford. It was a little hard learning how to operate the car with the long stick shift, but she managed it and kept her driver's license until she was 89.

"I also changed my tires, oil and spark plugs. I didn't have anybody to do it. My first husband died, and I put my second husband out after three years. He was no good," she said.

The winners of the annual Golden Galaxy Awards will be announced Wednesday. More than 300 students from 58 high schools were nominated in one of 11 categories based on their talents, and how they use them in their communities. Good Things Happening is profiling all 55 finalists.

Golden Galaxy Finalists

Name: Maggie Cunningham

Age: 17

School: Mother of Mercy High School

Community: Westwood

Category: Social Science

Parents: Ed Cunningham and Sarah Pihir

Maggie has traveled to Australia for three weeks as a student ambassador with People to People. She has helped kids in South Texas and on the Mexican border as part of a program to help childrenin poverty.

Name: Kyle Karches

Age: 17

School: St. Xavier High School

Community: Delhi Township

Category: Social Science

Parents: Don and Jane Karches

Kyle has been named a National Merit Scholarship semifinalist and was a tutor to the Rosebud Lakota Indian Reservation, South Dakota.

Name: John Mains

Age: 18

School: Simon Kenton High School

Community: Morning View

Category: Social Science

Parents: Milton and Cathy Mains

John was Kentucky's representative to the National 4-H Congress in Washington, D.C., and is co-chair of a tobacco prevention program for teens and the driving force for his school's AIDS program.

Behind the badge

The Cincinnati Police Canine Unit has something to bark about: It was judged best in the nation in the United States Police Canine Association national field trials Oct. 6 in Atlantic City, N.J.

Four of the teams that competed as a combined unit won first-place honors in obedience, agility, article search, suspect search and apprehension work.

Those teams included Spc. David Dougherty and his dog, Nico; Spc. David Kennedy and Scout; Officer John Neal and Max; and Officer Anthony White and Dakota.

As individual teams, Kennedy/Scout and Neal/Max tied for ninth place; White/Dakota placed 13th, and Dougherty/Nico 15th.

Officer Tim Pappas and dog Laser were there as alternates.