SENIOR OF THE YEAR WINNER

High Desert Medical Group’s Senior of the Year Nominees

Felix Mayerhofer

Felix Mayerhofer lived life with a horn to blow, a story to tell, and a dream to live, and he is still doing it. As Felix ambles into his 10th decade, he has come a long way from Port Chester, N.Y., where he lived. He was raised by scholarly parents, including a mother who tried to discourage him from getting mixed up with musicians. She feared they might exercise a bad influence. “I think she was trying to protect me,” he said. “It was my family background that kept me out of bad habits.” It must have worked. Felix recently celebrated his 90th birthday. However, like the boy with a guitar in “Coco,” Felix had a dream, and he had a talent too. His band teacher told him so. He told him he believed Felix could secure a scholarship to Juilliard, the prestigious school of music in New York. Felix loved the move to New York City, and loved the feeling of making music happen.

Felix caught the cresting wave of the Big Band Era, and ended up playing some of the top Big Band acts in the country, he recounted in his autobiography, “Diary of a Young Musician, 1948-1962.” As he described it, he was a young professional, still in his teens, when he went on the road is what he described as the “dog eat dog” world of big bands. He played with Nancy Lee and the Bachelors, and the Commanders, and Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians.

The Korean War came along, and Uncle Sam needed Felix and his trombone. During the conflict, he shared his talent with the 552nd U.S. Air Force Band, “a spit and polish outfit” out of March Air Force Base in Riverside.

Out of the Air Force, he resumed play with the Big Bands, traveling by bus, and playing the swinging sounds from New Orleans, to Las Vegas, Reno and Lake Tahoe. Sometimes they played to rougher crowd than Frank Sinatra’s “Rat Pack.” One night he defended a young lady’s honor, and a Mob boss “gave him a pass” because he liked his music, but told him with a cold-blooded tone, “Don’t do that again.”

It was time for a change, and he met the love of his life, Shirley Wagner, a beautiful, professional dancer, who would become Shirley Mayerhofer. The life of a road musician was ending for him. Marriage, and fatherhood was beckoning.

Fortunately, he landed in Palmdale, where he went on to be the director of music programs, and along the way in his new career, he became “Teacher Of The Year.” He went on to direct the Jazz Band program for Palmdale High School before his retirement, and that was 30 years ago.

(George Ray Not Pictured)

George and April Ray

For nearly four decades, April and George Ray have been the full-spectrum costumers to the Antelope Valley – providing everything from children’s Halloween and superhero costumes for birthdays, to delivering all the wardrobe for dozens of theatrical performances at the Lancaster Performing Arts Center and the Palmdale Playhouse. For 37 years, Daisy’s Costumes was a destination stop in downtown Lancaster, where the imaginative, the dramatic, and partygoers all sought their custom costumery, including dressing up VIPs and character players for High Desert Medical Group’s Senior Expo. Whether a fairy princess or a knight in armor, April could do it all from a crowded workroom piled high with enough fabric to outfit an entire Renaissance Faire. Endless parades of fairy princesses, pirate kings, super heroes and even the odd asparagus emerged from April’s able handiwork. “The asparagus was the worst,” she said. “The customer didn’t like it, and I wish I had only made one!” For Halloween, the shop even had a “Scary Room” where the more macabre outfits were hung.

April, a native Briton, met George 48 years ago when he was serving in England with the U.S. Air Force. George retired as a Master Sergeant, going on to work for General Dynamics in the Antelope Valley environs of Edwards Air Force Base. April opened a thrift shop that gradually, with her deft handiwork, became Daisy’s Costumes. “I made all the costumes, and George did all the laundry when they came back,” April said. “All those years, and I never had to do a load of laundry.” And that’s the stuff of love, marriage, and building a dream gig together. Sometimes George donned a costume, like the time he played “Dr. Einstein,” for the Palmdale Playhouse debut production of “Arsenic and Old Lace” at the beginning of the 1990s.

April is the daughter of a Women’s Royal Air Force mother who served during the Battle of Britain. Coming to America, April opened a Lancaster thrift shop in the early 1980s that became Daisy’s Costumes, where she sewed and designed all costumes for local dramatics. Together, the couple became a beloved institution, only retiring in 2019. Their venture, Daisy’s Costumes, became such a local landmark on Lancaster Boulevard that when the store burned down in 2014, the community pitched in to rescue costumes, and to help the couple relocate to another venue in downtown Lancaster.

Mako Roberts

If you want to go looking for Mako Roberts, you might go to the soup and sandwich feeding event for the homeless hosted by the Methodist Church. She applauds the other volunteers at the Soup Kitchen, saying, "They are such wonderful women."

Mako has been making a contribution to her community for more than 50 years, and in the Antelope Valley for more than 30 years, which is why her admirers nominated her for the Senior Of The Year award in 2020. Virtually all nominees are people who make a contribution in their community, and any one of them would be an excellent choice. But one of the qualities of a nominee tends to be modesty. "I am embarrassed, actually," she said in an interview. "There are many people who have great achievements."

A few years ago, Shirley Sayles, a career nurse, wrote an interesting account of Mako's life for the church newsletter. According to Sayles: "Mako was born in the small country town of Nishio, near Nagoya Japan. She described herself as a 'tomboy,' who loved riding her bicycle to neighboring towns, and says she has been a busybody ever since. After high school, with her mother's encouragement, she attended college in Yokohama to study English and become an English teacher. She was introduced to her future husband, Navy sailor Philip Roberts, by mutual American friends. They were married first in the U.S. Embassy on March 1, 1963, and then in the Chapel at the Navy Base at Yokosuka, Japan, on July 13, 1963. When Phil retired after 20 years in the Navy they moved to Lancaster, and Phil went to work with Flight Systems at Mojave Airport. In the fall of 1963 they left Japan and lived in Hanford, Calif., near Lemoore Naval Air Station for two years. Mako came to Lancaster United Methodist Church as part of a Bible Study Group for Japanese ladies. Mako found that Christianity offered her a sense of love and peace, and that she discovered something good and solid to believe in. She has been involved in the Megumi Fellowship for more than 30 years and has served as its chairperson. Mako was one of the original members of the Soup Kitchen when it started more than 30 years ago, and still works with that team."

Also, Mako can be seen in support of her husband Phillip's activities in support of veterans. Mako says that when she came to the United States she was "young and naive" as a 23-year-old Navy bride. She had learned English in preparation to be a teacher in Japan, but it prepared her to be a great American. In addition to her sons, she has four grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren, and she loves all of them.

Joycelyn Shank

Her friends describe her as a 30-year Antelope Valley resident “who brings joy wherever she goes,” and as a “young and vibrant 88-year-old.” She is part of the volunteer musical group “The Happy Singers.” Before the Covid-19, the Happy Singers brought their repertoire to eight or more assisted living and retirement home communities in the Antelope Valley. “Faces beam with happiness as Joy sings and dances for them,” one of her nominators observed. “Many times she includes the audience, encouraging them to sing and dance with her to lift their spirits.”

Over the years, she has volunteered for her church, volunteered with the Brownies, and at veteran hospitals and prisons. “She has brought many musical programs where her warm, friendly personality brought joy to those less fortunate,” her nomination sponsor wrote. “I find that with older people, if you take a few minutes with them, suddenly they will tell you about their whole life,” she said.

Living on Oahu for 13 years, she worked in prisons as a psychiatric social worker, first as a volunteer, then doing clinical work. She went to college where she went on to earn a master’s degree in psychology. “I worked with the incarcerated mentally ill, men, women, youth,” she said. “Mostly it was to help them to understand that they need to follow rules, and that the men need to respect women. Most of the men I worked with were rapists, and I tried to help them understand why they would do these things,” she said. “Most of the men had been abused by their own family. I tried to teach them to be more sensitive, and to discuss the reasons why they got into prison in the first place.”

She has been very active in her church. She is happy about all the opportunities she has experienced to interact with all kinds of people. “I love people,” she said. “I love all ages, all … groups. I’m a very friendly person. I talk a lot, but I am a good listener too,” she said.