Woman, 102, says she’ll be Oldest Olympian at Meet

LAKE RIDGE, Va. — At 102, Doris Woodring reckons she’s the oldest participant in this month’s 2012 Northern Virginia Senior Olympics (NVSO). The resident at Westminster at Lake Ridge will compete for her first time in scrabble on Sept. 24 at the Lincolnia Senior Citizen’s Center.

“I’m pretty sure I’ll be the oldest Olympian,” says the resident at Westminster. “Scrabble keeps my mind alert. I still do my own finances, you know.”

While she looks forward to the event, the centenarian is not optimistic about her chances of winning.

“I doubt if I’ll win,” she says. “There’ll be a lot of experts, but it’ll still be fun.”

Doris has been practicing her Scrabble skills, particularly ‘Q’ and ‘K’ words.

“I look in the dictionary to find more words like quads, quaff and quiver,” she says. “The way to make points is adding onto other letters already on the board.”

She has played Scrabble her whole life, but cannot remember her first time playing the word game.

She has lived in Northern Virginia most of her life, moving there from Kansas in 1935.

2012 is the 30th Anniversary of NVSO. Participants must be 50 years of age and live in a sponsoring jurisdiction to be eligible. There are 40 events which take place over a 10 day period at 18 venues throughout Northern Virginia. For information go to nvso.us.

-Press release