ELDERHOSTEL PARTICIPANTS STUDY MISSISSIPPI

There currently are 42 senior citizens living in a Southeast Missouri State University residence hall and eating in the University Center.

They are on campus as part of the Elderhostel program, an international program geared for people over the age of 60 that encourages continued education among the older population.

Shelba Branscum, Elderhostel coordinator at Southeast, said: "They take classes and field trips and live in dorms. The idea is they're to be students for a week.

"We want to keep people over 60 on campus and give them access to good professors," Branscum said. "Continued, lifelong learning is very important."

The visiting seniors represent over 20 states. They will spend a week here learning about Mississippi River heritage. They live in Myers residence hall.

The visiting seniors attend class from 9 a.m. to noon and then spend the afternoon touring the sites of Southeast Missouri.

The theme of this Elderhostel session is the Mississippi River South. "It's a one-week, intensive course on Mississippi River history, folklore and geography," Branscum said. The course and field trips concentrate on the river, starting at Cape Girardeau and moving south.

The previous program held this summer was about the Trail of Tears, Branscum said.

Pat H. Elwonger of Victoria, Texas, is on her sixth Elderhostel trip.

"I've also been to North Carolina, Southern Illinois, Kentucky, St. Louis and Ireland," she said. "The accommodations here are better; we usually get some pretty stripped-down accommodations."

She recently spent three weeks in Ireland with the Elderhostel program.

"They gave us the best they had the best hotels, the best food, the best service," Elwonger said. "It was just three weeks of bliss. None of us had any complaints.

"We lived in their homes for a week. We were just absorbed into the families."

Elwonger said the village where she stayed in people's homes was called Carrigaline. "It was just like the little town I grew up in," she said, "so it was like going back in time 50 years."

Elwonger's trip to Ireland was her fifth, but it was her first time to go with Elderhostel. "I never talked to anyone who didn't like it," she said.

Branscum said that many of the Elderhostel members, like Elwonger, travel alone. The Mississippi river program, however, seems to attract more men than most other programs, she said.

"We have a lot of couples this time because a lot of men are interested in the Mississippi River," said Branscum.

She said the number of people in attendance at this session is up from last year, but that last year's attendance was down due to the Persian Gulf War.

Only two sessions are ever held in the summer. "We'd run more if I had access to dorms," Branscum said. "Dorm availability limits how many we can have."

The cost for a person to attend a Missouri Elderhostel program is about $270, Branscum said. "The Elderhostel office in Boston limits how much people can be charged," she said.

The cost at Southeast is $260. "That covers everything," Branscum said. "It includes room and board, cost of the class and all our activities."

There are also scholarships available to people who otherwise could not afford to attend an Elderhostel program.

"We have two people here on Hostelships," Branscum said. "It's really left up to the institution to decide how to award the scholarships."