Their Second Acts
Herman Kelly, Jr. (STH’83), a champion swimmer, has competed in the National Senior Games three times. Photo by Jesus Aranguren
Their Second Acts
In their encore careers and ongoing hobbies, these six BU alums are following their passions
Encore, encore! For some older adults, a second act is a postretirement career that draws on different skills and expertise from the first. For others, it’s an engaging hobby that allows them to be surrounded by a community of fellow passion seekers. Experts on aging agree that staying active as we get older is one of the keys to a fulfilling life. We spoke to six Boston University alums whose second acts have taken them to center stage, down the catwalk, across the finish line, and other remarkable places.
THE CHAMPION SWIMMER
Name: Herman Kelly, Jr. (STH’83)
Location: Baton Rouge, La.
First Act: Adjunct college instructor, AME pastor
Bio: Before Herman Kelly, Jr., became an award-winning instructor in African and African American studies at Louisiana State University, before he was ordained as a pastor in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, he was a Morehouse College Tiger Shark. “The Morehouse swim team has the legacy of being one of the premier Black swim teams in the world,” Kelly says. “I made the team my freshman year, and I swam all four years.” After graduating, Kelly took a decades-long break from swimming, until a worrisome doctor’s visit got him back in the pool. Since his return, Kelly has trained every week, earned a few state championship titles, and competed in the National Senior Games three times, placing 14th in the nation in 2022. His goal is to become national champion in the next five years. “The water is where God and I meet,” he says.
Listen: Kelly shares his spiritual relationship with swimming
Photo by Jesus Aranguren
THE ACTOR/DIRECTOR
Name: Harvey Widell (CFA’57)
Location: Boynton Beach, Fla.
First Act: English teacher
Bio: After a 32-year career as an English teacher in Brooklyn, N.Y., Harvey Widell retired in 1989 and relocated to a senior community in Florida. Within two weeks, he was asked if he would like to be the director of the Way-Off Broadway Players, a troupe of 16 people who toured south Florida, doing scenes from plays, comedy, and sketches. Since his move, Widell has helmed three local theater groups, led acting workshops, and appeared in more than a dozen productions. “The correlation between teaching and directing is a very great one,” he says. (Before retirement, he was a community theater director on Long Island for 30 years.) A star player in his current theater troupe, Widell has had lead roles in My Fair Lady, Fiddler on the Roof, The Sound of Music, and South Pacific, to name a few. “I don’t see any reason not to keep at it,” he says. “I’m going to keep doing it for as long as I can.”
Listen: Widell on why he keeps returning to the stage
Photo by Sonya Revell
THE DISTANCE RUNNER
Name: Mary McManus (COM’76)
Location: Chestnut Hill, Mass.
First Act: VA social worker
Bio: As a child, Mary McManus was diagnosed with polio in one of the country’s last outbreaks. The nightmare returned in 2006 in the form of post-polio syndrome, a painful nerve and muscle disorder that often occurs decades after recovery from the initial virus. It forced McManus into early retirement from her beloved career as a Veterans Affairs social worker, and doctors told her to get used to life in a wheelchair. “In February of 2007, I was home all alone, and I said [to] God, ‘I know I’m at a crossroads. You helped me when I had polio. What are we going to do now?’” McManus says. The answer came with the arrival of an in-home personal trainer. “We started setting new goals. I said, ‘I want to run the Boston Marathon next year.’ And she said, ‘Well, you’re going to need a pair of running shoes.’” In 2009, at 55, McManus crossed the finish line, raising $10,535 for Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. She still runs three times a week, rain or shine.
Listen: McManus explains how running changed her life
Photo by Jackie Ricciardi
THE FIBER ARTIST
Name: Linda Keene (Questrom’73)
Location: Charlotte, N.C.
First Act: Marketing executive, nonprofit CEO
Bio: Technically, Linda Keene is in her third act. After a 25-year-plus career as a marketing executive, she transitioned to the nonprofit sector, serving as a CEO for eight years. It was a whirlwind career, and Keene didn’t feel like sitting idle in her retirement. “I learned about a field called art quilting, where people create pictures out of fabric,” she says. “And I said, ‘Well, let me see if I can do something like that.’” Keene’s work, which features vignettes of African American life, is influenced by her grandmother’s quilting and her mother’s seamstress handiwork. “They were doing it to make something to keep families warm, using the fabric that was available,” she says. Steeped in tradition and incorporating some of the skills she picked up from her mother, Keene’s fiber works have been featured in Quiltfolk magazine, shown in local galleries, and exhibited in the Mint Museum in Charlotte, N.C.
Listen: Keene discusses how childhood skills led her to fiber arts
Photo by Ebony Stubbs
THE MUSIC HISTORIAN
Name: Hank Davis (GRS’65)
Location: Puslinch, Ontario, Canada
First Act: Rockabilly singer, psychology professor
Bio: As a high schooler in the late 1950s, Hank Davis formed a rock and roll group called Hank and the Electras, cut a few records, and then disbanded to attend college. “[But] I guess I never got past it,” he says. As a psychology professor, he reconnected with his love of performing. “When I stood in front of a class of 600 kids teaching Intro Psych, that’s exactly the energy I might have used when I was performing onstage,” he says. “Only now I’m talking about Skinner and Pavlov.” Now that he’s an emeritus professor, he has more time to write magazine articles and liner notes, reissue rare tracks by early rock and country musicians, and record new music—all of which he did during his 35-year teaching career. In 2023, he compiled his knowledge into a new book, Ducktails, Drive-ins, and Broken Hearts (SUNY Press), a look at the roots of rock music, which Library Journal called “captivating and surprising.”
Listen: Davis on his enduring love of music
Photo by Mathew McCarthy
THE LIFESTYLE MODEL
Name: Veronica “Ronni” Sarmanian (CAS’70, COM’74)
Location: Charleston, S.C.
First Act: Science and technology communications strategist
Bio: Perhaps no one was more surprised at Ronni Sarmanian’s modeling career than Sarmanian herself. “In school pictures, I stand out—that odd little dark face in the corner,” she says. “I just wasn’t the profile.” After a successful career as one of the nation’s first tech communications specialists, Sarmanian retired in the early 2000s and moved to Charleston, S.C., in 2019. A few years later, some friends convinced her to attend a model casting call for the city’s fashion week. She was a hit with the judges and soon caught the attention of a local modeling agency. Now, in addition to walking the catwalk in community fashion shows, Sarmanian is moving into lifestyle modeling. “The kind of work I would do might be an ad for a retirement community…or being the face of some medication,” she says. “They always say, ‘Don’t tell anyone how old you are because you don’t look that old.’ It’s just a number. You’re doing what you’re doing because you’re healthy and vibrant.”
Listen: Sarmanian recalls her first modeling casting call
Photo by Max Regenold
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