Age is just a number

103-year-old Brookings resident still living on his own

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BROOKINGS – “IASA.” 

That cryptic and succinct email to his two sons is part of the daily routine of Boyd Shank, who at 103 years old lives alone in his own condominium in Brookings. It translates to: “I am still alive.” 

“I joked with them once,” he added with a smile and hint of a laugh. “I don’t know how to put it if I’m not still alive.”

When Shank sat down for a visit with The Brookings Register earlier this week, his sense of humor permeated a lengthy interview that looked back over more than a century.

Early education

He was born Nov. 5, 1914, on a farm in Jewell County, Kansas. For seven years, Shank attended an eight-grade country school there.

“I skipped the third grade,” he said. “So I was there for seven grades.”

Laughing, he added, “I was an antsy little kid, and they couldn’t keep me busy. So I skipped the third grade. I went from second grade to fourth grade.”

Shank does, however, for practical reasons have some regrets for that skipped grade. It put him in grades with students at least a year older than he was.

“I would have loved to have played basketball when I was in high school,” he explained. “When I graduated, most of the kids were 18; I was 16. I wasn’t big enough to participate in the athletics I wanted to.”

Actually, the age disparity between Shank and his classmates began when he started school. Being a November baby, he went into first grade at 4 years old.

“Nobody ever heard of kindergarten,” he said of country schools in those days.

Continuing his education, Shank went to high school in Superior, Nebraska, and at 16 graduated in 1931. From there he went straight to the University of Nebraska (Lincoln) and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in agronomy, graduating in 1935. Then came six years of graduate work at Iowa State University (Ames).

“I thought I was never going to get out of there,” Shank said, again smiling. But he persevered and did, earning a doctorate in genetics in 1941.

Graduates, marries, moves   

On Dec. 20, Shank graduated, married Clarice Elizabeth Manwiller in Ames and they moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas. Succinctly capturing the events of that day, he said, “I graduated in the morning, got married in the afternoon and started to a job in Arkansas in the evening.”

The husband-and-wife team would stay in Fayetteville, both working at the University of Arkansas, until fall 1946. He served as an assistant professor and worked as a cotton breeder and corn breeder. Clarice worked in the university library.

“I’d never seen a cotton plant in my life until I got there, and I was an expert the next day,” Shank said, laughing heartily. Additionally, he taught a course in plant breeding. In summers, he worked at a cotton branch experiment station. He held the rank of assistant professor and later associate professor.  

World War II was underway when the Shanks arrived in Fayetteville, and he was fit for military service. However, he was granted several deferments because of his work with cotton, which at that time was still being used to make parachutes and also to make military uniforms.

But it was corn breeding work that would bring him and Clarice to South Dakota State University and Brookings – to stay.

Hybrid corn, no more cotton

The couple both found professional and academic fulfillment at SDSU. Majoring in foods and nutrition, Clarice earned a bachelor’s degree in 1963. She added a master’s degree in 1970 and went on as a faculty member to teach food and nutrition. She was twice elected teacher of the year in the College of Home Economics. She retired in 1983 as an assistant professor emeritus. Clarice died in 2013.

Shank spent 35 years as a corn breeder and teacher. During that time, corn went from open-pollinated to almost 100 percent hybrid. He developed several lines of corn and hybrids. He retired as a professor emeritus in 1980.

During this time, the Shanks were settled in Brookings and raising a family. They have two sons, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Their oldest son, David, 69, a retired Air Force senior non-commissioned officer who served 27 years, lives in Washington state.

Timothy, 63, works in the motion picture industry in the Los Angeles area.

Healthy, fit, still driving

Living alone, Shank has settled into a comfortable lifestyle that has its daily routine with some repetitiveness. But he’s meaningfully busy and doesn’t get bored.

“You get up in the morning and you gotta get breakfast and you gotta eat it and then you clean up,” he said. “At noon you do it again.” 

He has a healthy diet. He’s thankful when his sons and their wives visit. They put together some meals and stock the refrigerator and deep freeze with them, so he can later cook and eat them.

One prized daily routine which Shank takes seriously is napping.

“The older you get, the more you nap,” he said. “The naps have become much longer with time.” 

He started with 10 minutes; that has now grown to “an hour, religiously.”

He likes television, and that allows him to be a devoted Jacks fan. He follows their games whenever they’re televised; but he no longer attends in person.

As to his reading habits, he explained that over the years he and Clarice acquired a large collection of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. One of Boyd’s favorite authors from that collection is Dick Francis, a British jockey turned mystery writer.

“Every once in awhile I’ll haul one of them out,” Shank said. “In fact I just finished one. I think for being a jockey he was a pretty good writer.”

Religious faith plays a big role in his life. With a touch of humor, he noted that he grew up Methodist and married a Lutheran.

“I’m a Methodist with a little bit of Lutheran veneer. Hypocrite,” he said with a smile. “My mother would roll over in her grave.”

In addition to Sunday services at First Lutheran Church, he goes there Thursday mornings and helps puts together large-print bulletins and programs to be handed out at Brookings’ two nursing homes.

Asked about his sense of humor, Shank said, “I grew up a very shy and timid kid. I don’t know if I ever got over that. But I find joking, kidding with people now is entertaining.”

Another life routine that he does take seriously is fitness. 

“I used to jog up there religiously at the (HPER Center), but I’m recently on my second Airdyne bicycle,” he said. “I ride it for 50 minutes at least four times a week. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday are my days.” 

He does take medication for hypertension.

Add to regular exercise a healthy lifestyle with no tobacco or alcohol. He jokingly remembers a slogan from when he was a kid. 

“We’re the boys from the institute. We don’t smoke and we don’t chew and we don’t go with the girls that do.”

On a more serious note, he admits to being a “teetotaler,” adding that any kind of alcohol doesn’t agree with him.

Like most elderly persons, he prizes his driver’s license. He’s had cataract surgery and his vision is fine, but he doesn’t drive at night. Putting it simply, he said, “I don’t have any place to go.”

Asked if longevity runs in his family, Shank said his paternal grandfather lived to 91; his own father lived to 87; and his mother died before his father.

As to his own long life, what’s the formula?

“The secret to long life, I suppose, is having a pretty good set of genes, heredity to start with,” Shank said. Add to that “a wife that was a dietician, had a master’s in dietetics; she fed me well and taught me how to eat after she’s gone; and exercise.

“If you don’t exercise, you sit and rock all the time, you don’t last long. I think exercise keeps a person alive.”

Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.