Ralph McBurney America’s oldest worker dead
July 11th, 2009 - 4:04 am ICT by John Le Fevre
Ralph McBurney, beekeeper, athlete, author, and America’s oldest worker, has died at the age of 106.
Generally referred to as Waldo, McBurney lived and worked as a beekeeper in the town of Quinter in far western Kansas, the same town he was born in.
The third of six children, McBurney, graduated from the Kansas State Agricultural College, now Kansas State University, in 1927 with a degree in horticulture.
In an agricultural career spanning almost 25-years, McBurney spent three years teaching, 17 years as a County Agricultural Agent in Kansas, and three more years working for the Midwest Cooperative in Quinter.
Following this, beekeeping and the sale of honey became his most active business, and in the last few years he maintained as many as 100 colonies.
At the age of 65 McBurney decided to take up long-distance running and at age 80 set a Kansas state record for the 10-mile (16km) run for athletes his age and went on to set records in running, long jump, discus and shot put into his 90s and 100s at the Senior Olympics and World Masters in New York, England and Puerto Rico.
In 2004 he published his autobiography My First 100 Years and in October 2006, McBurney was recognized as the oldest worker in America by Experience Works.
McBurney had three children with his first wife, Irene, and after her death in 1960 married Vernice Forman, 12-years his junior in 1962 who survives him.
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Tags: 17 years, autobiography, beekeeper, beekeeping, county agricultural agent, discus, experience works, first wife, horticulture, kansas state university, long jump, oldest worker in america, quinter, spent three, state agricultural college, waldo mcburney, western kansas, wife irene, world masters, york england