Nan Everhart is many things to many people: she's an ardent supporter of human rights, a loyal friend and colleague, a mother and grandmother. But most of all she's a trailblazer. In 1955, she established the first after-school program for children at the Orono, Maine, YMCA and in 1958 spearheaded an effort to get legislation passed for a juvenile-detention home.

"Back then, when teenage boys got into trouble with the law, they were sent to jail. I felt that it would be safer for them if they were with their peers and not incarcerated with older men," she said.

In 1968, while living in Fort Collins, Colo., where her husband was a professor of fishery management and ichthyology at Colorado State University, Everhart started a program to deliver hot meals to the elderly and recruited other faculty wives and members of local churches to assist. In 1972, during her husband's tenure as head of Cornell University's Environmental Studies Department, she was an active board member of the university's faculty women's club and also worked in the infirmary at the student hospital. Later she worked as an administrative assistant in the mental health department at the hospital. "As a homemaker, I found that I had too much energy to stay home, so I got involved with community projects," she said.

Dr. W. Harry Everhart died of Alzheimer's in 1990. The couple have three children, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. In 1996, Everhart decided to move to Santa Fe, but she still misses her time in Maine. "It's a long walk to the beach from here," she said.

Along with 160 other volunteers, Everhart assists her daughter, Sondra Everhart, in her position as state ombudsmen responsible for the protection of residents in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. For many years, she visited facilities and talked to residents about their lives and concerns. Currently, she works in the office answering phone calls and filing paperwork three days a week.

Everhart was born in Clydebank, Scotland, in 1921 to Andrew Gray and Jean Mitchell Memzies McMaster. Her only sister, Margret passed away in 1986. During World War I, her father was recruited by General Electric to come to the United States due to a shortage of engineers. Both she and her parents quickly became U.S. citizens. While her father worked as an engineer and dabbled as a seascape artist, her mother became interested in the stock market. She bought stock in the New York Power and Light Co. and her investment grew into a financial endowment for the family prior to the Great Depression. Everhart believes that her decision to get a degree in economics at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pa., was influenced by her mother's business savvy during the Depression.

At 90, Everhart is still an avid bridge player and helped organize bridge games at the Santa Fe Women's Club. "You need four people to play bridge, so I would often have to scrounge around to make sure that we had enough participants," she said.

As spry as ever, she keeps up with her volunteer work and walks her dogs, Stuart and Spike, twice a day. She's also an ardent reader of detective novels. "I love to see how quickly I can solve the plot," she said.

This summer — with her childrens' blessing, but for one request as a result of a recent misadventure — Everhart plans on visiting Scotland to relive her ancestral past.

In 2010, while on a trip to Malaga, Spain, Everhart rented a motor scooter, slipped down a 10-foot embankment and broke her hip. Not knowing anyone there or how to speak Spanish, she managed to survive a 30-hour plane trip back to Santa Fe. When her daughter picked her up at the Albuquerque airport, she drove back to Santa Fe going 90 miles an hour. Everhart was admitted to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, where she received excellent care and a new hip — and completed physical therapy two days early.

"My children are really excited that I'm going back to Scotland, but they all said, "Please don't rent a motor scooter."

Ana Pacheco's weekly tribute to our community elders appears every Sunday. She can be reached at 505-474-2800.