World's Oldest Worker Quits at 104

[lovechild]

GRANTHAM, Pa. - A man billed as the world's oldest worker is calling it quits.

Ray Crist, a retired scientist who started teaching at Messiah College near Harrisburg in 1970, put down his pointer Tuesday at age 104.

Crist, though, has no plans to rest on his laurels.

Instead, he'll keep up with his research and academic papers, the latest of which sets out to explain how plants absorb toxic metals and thereby clean the soil.

''When you have a mission, you go after it,'' said Crist, who worked on the Manhattan Project. ''And I am still going after it.''

Two years ago, at age 102, Crist was named America's oldest worker by a nonprofit training group called Experience Works.

He started at Messiah at age 70, after a career in science and a decade teaching at Dickinson University. In his 34 years at Messiah, he took only a token salary of $1 a year.

''...(L)ast year when I had classes in his building, I would walk by and see him in his office,'' said sophomore Kinsey Rice. ''He would be in there, hunched over at the desk, working. It was kind of like motivation.''

Crist was born in central Pennsylvania, just a few miles from the land where Messiah would be built. His grandfather was a Union soldier in the Civil War, and his father a farmer and auctioneer.

Crist got used to hard work early, feeding hogs every morning as a boy.

In 1926, he earned a doctorate in chemistry from Columbia University. In 1945, he was a director with the Manhattan Project, the secret U.S. effort to develop an atomic bomb. He later worked at Union Carbide Corp.

Crist, who lives in Carlisle, lost his wife in 1961. His son, Henry Crist, is a pathologist at Carlisle Regional Medical Center.

[feline]

Geez...I do well to get up out of the bed to go to work at age 41....much less at 104! I want some of his vitamins!

[Snap Dragon]

DOES HE EVER SAY WHAT'S THE SECRET TO HIS LONG LIFE? I WANNA KNOW HOW I CAN LIVE SO LONG....MY GREAT, GREAT, GREAT GRANDMOTHER WAS ALIVE WHEN I WAS FOUR....I'M NOT SURE WHAT YEAR BUT SHE DIED AT ABOUT AGE 103....I AM JUST FASCINATED BY HIS LONG LIFE...BUT THROW IN THE FACT THAT HE WAS UNRETIRED UNTIL THE AGE OF 104 AND YOU HAVE ONE AMAZED GIRL OVER HERE!

[div]

my great grandfather died last year at the age of 98. He was a candy-striper in a nashville hospital until he was 95. It seems like the secret to longevity is to never stop working. He also walked at least 2 miles a day - every day. His health only seemed to really decline after my grandmother put him in a nursing home where he was no longer allowed as much activity.