By Janet Wetzel
Enquirer contributor

COVEDALE - Before Kay Koenig walked out the school door for the last time in 1984, she was already making her retirement plans. She looked forward to sleeping in when the mood struck, and pursuing long-neglected interests.

But fate stepped in while those luxuries were just thoughts.

Kay Koenig stand in the hallway at Mercy Franciscan West in Westwood. (Ernest Coleman photo)

While riding a bus home from a luncheon one day, Koenig, 79, overheard two elderly, frail women eagerly discussing their volunteer work. She felt guilty.

"I was thinking, this is not right. Here I am in perfect health, with plenty of time, and all I'm doing is just things to make me happy," she recalled. "I decided then and there things had to change."

The Covedale mother of two and grandmother of two went straight home and called Mercy Franciscan West to start volunteering. Before long she was so busy volunteering, she forgot the meaning of "free time." She has logged more than 14,000 volunteer hours since then.

Three days a week Koenig rolls out of bed at 4 a.m. and is at Mercy Franciscan by 5, where she helps in the ambulatory care unit. When she gets home, she knits and crochets. For nine years she's made about 50 sets of mittens and hats annually for the Oak Hills Rost Head Start Program, plus 10-15 small quilts for Children's Hospital Medical Center.

Each month, she and Louis, her husband of 57 years, also buy and oversee preparation of 40 meals for the Cheviot Westwood Kiwanis board meetings, a fund-raiser for their Westwood United Methodist Church. Since mid-June, the two retired Oak Hills teachers have been in charge of the food for their church's Habitat for Humanity project work sessions.

She's gone on six annual church building missions to Bosnia, Moscow and Bolivia, where she pays her own way and works for up to 10 days. And she bakes dozens of cookies for a women's reformatory for the church prison ministry.

Family friend John Michael called her an amazing, generous woman, who always goes above and beyond. "I envy her energy and all her good works," Michael said. "She and her husband both are always helping others. They're wonderful."

Koenig said she's in good health, "for an old woman like me," with rarely a complaint.

"This all just keeps us off the streets and out of trouble,'' she said. "I often think how much mischief I could be into if I didn't do all this. I really love doing this."

---

Do you know a Hometown Hero - someone in your community dedicated to making it a better place to live and helping others? E-mail Janet Wetzel at jjwetzel@siscom.net, or fax to 513-755-4150.