Elder Speak 2024

Donations welcome

JOURNEY TO WISDOM

el·​der

one having authority by virtue of age and experience

Elder Speak is a guided journey that honors, affirms, and brings forth the essential untapped wisdom of our Elders.

As this latent wisdom is brought forward it benefits not only the elder, but their families and the entire community.

The heartfelt reflections that the Elders offer connects us to our shared human experience.

Through Elder Speak we gain insight on how to navigate tough times, how to cherish the easy times and how to hold gratitude for it all.

Elder Speak teaches us the meaning of resilience.

Our Elders, by exploring their own lives and sharing their life experience with us, honor us with their wisdom, and challenge us to explore our own wisdom and honor our own lives. 

JOURNEY TO WISDOM

Meet The Elders

2025

Glen Carlson Joe Roy Merry Roy Ron Scutt

Glen Carlson

I was born in Duluth, Minnesota and raised in my early years above Daugherty Hardware where my dad worked. Daugherty’s was situated in a small town-like commercial district, where a lone child roaming outdoors did not sound the alarms that it does today. In my early teens, I was shaped by nature’s way at our north woods cabin. I also learned much about life by rising early every morning with my dog Mitzi, to deliver the Duluth News Tribune. As a rather unfocused high school graduate, I opted for adventure over college. I found more adventure than I bargained for on the brown waters of the Mekong Delta during my tour of duty in Vietnam.

After the service, I hefted the shifting weight of innocence-lost by hitching, hopping and trucking around the country. Along the way, I was tagged as a recipient of grace and found the keys of life in the heart of a great soul who became my loving collaborator in building a tribe of daughters, grandchildren and now, great-grandchildren. After our wedding, we decided to strike the family tipi and sell off our homestead to help fund a higher call as a late blooming college freshman of twenty-six. During the work years that followed graduation, I would trade my career in television for a 45-year solo journey of writing and production, and marketing and advertising.

My early 50s marked a season of sorrows buffered by strengths of much sustaining love. In 2003, Marn succumbed to the corruptions of cancer. In time, I would be graced again, by Tracy, my loving second-half of life partner. Ten years ago, I swung on another pivot point after reading a meditation which led to a transformational release of mindful living. At 74, I am still reeling out lifelines and celebrating full-circle living by noting the waves of wonder that overflow the path of this shorter side of life. 

Josheph Roy

I was born in the farm country of Kankakee, Illinois, to older parents.  My father served as a corpsman in France during WWI, and my mother studied classical singing in Chicago. Following the war my father and his brother opened a radiology-medical lab in town. My mother was disabled in a medical experiment that burned the skin off both her feet. As a boy I helped in her care.  My older brother was away in WWII. My schooling was with Catholic nuns and priests, and I was an active altar boy. As a kid and teen I was interested in biology and physics applied to growing mold and fungus, sports, and girls as well as risk-taking experiments with explosives and neighborhood adventures. Our large extended family had weekly parties, my father playing jazz violin, uncles and aunts playing big band instruments, and my mother singing.

My undergraduate studies were at Loyola University in Chicago followed by the Marine Corps, Antioch Masters in Education, Boston University ThM in Pastoral Counseling, and the Union Institute PhD in Counseling Psychology.

My wife and I met in a mid-western blizzard and were married eleven months later. We both dreamed of having lots of children, but settled for five, two by birth and three by adoption. Now we have fourteen grandchildren.

For over 40 years I’ve worked in education and counseling. I taught high school, worked with Outward Bound, have been a college dean at WVC, and finally I had a counseling and consulting practice focused on marriage, family and treatment of chronic pain and trauma. The trauma work took me to a variety of national and international sites. Throughout these years I was involved in various ministries, seeking to follow God’s leading in peacemaking and social justice, hospice chaplaincy, cancer care, and conservation efforts. My personal interests include music, hiking, fly fishing, photography and travel with friends and family.  

Merry Roy

  I was born in Milwaukee in the first wave of Baby Boomers, January 1946. We lived for awhile in a small town near Champagne-Urbana while my dad taught at the University of Illinois, but I spent most of my growing up years in Evanston outside Chicago.  My parents taught my sister, brother and I the values of living our faith and of loving our neighbors everywhere.

In high school I read John Hersey’s book Hiroshima, and our church hosted a delegation of Hibakusha, survivors of the atomic bomb.  These experiences 

along with my parents example of peacemaking, drew me to work to end the war in Vietnam and join the Fellowship of Reconciliation.  

During my junior year at Indiana University I met Joe on a train to Chicago (that’s a story in itself), and we talked about what was important to us —faith and community and working for peace.  Within eleven months we were married, and he was in the Marines. I finished my Education degree by mail, and he applied to be a conscientious objector.

My first year of teaching was in Baltimore just after Martin Luther King’s assassination. Then we decided to move west, interviewing in small towns near mountains, and Wenatchee chose us.  I remember standing in the street gazing at the mountains in amazement.  If you wanted a view in Illinois, you stood on a dead cow, or so they said.

I taught at Wenatchee High School (the old one) for two years and twenty years at Orondo Elementary.  My doctor and my dentist and many friends are former students.  Our children, two born to us and three adopted, are middle aged adults now.  We have 14 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.  We found a good community.

We are blessed to be rooted in a place close to nature, encompassing a beautiful variety of people, and giving us opportunities to work with others to make our world better.

Ron Scutt

Life’s blessings have enabled me to spend the past five decades as a teacher, superintendent, and currently, teacher’s aide in Stehekin Washington’s One-Room School. 

Born in Philadelphia General Hospital on May 24, 1947. I was christened Alan Teague. My attachment to my mother was brief as I was put up for adoption. Two and a half years later, Ed and Nina Scutt adopted me, naming me Ronald Wiley Scutt. Today, I’m a blend of Alan and Ron. I am thankful for life and the loving hearts of parents like mine who step up to adopt children in need. 

Raised in Abington, PA, my early education was an arduous slog through the primary grades. At the end of each school year, I was promoted to the next grade while parents and teachers held their collective breath, hoping for a sudden blossoming somewhere along my educational path.

In fifth grade, Mr. Brewer changed the trajectory of my life. He recognized talents in me that I had previously been unaware. Mr. Brewer was genuinely kind and challenged each student to excel academically and play fair on the playground. I venerated him and am grateful for his presence in my life. In fifth grade, I knew I wanted to be like Mr. Brewer—a teacher. 

During this journey to Stehekin and its One-Room School, I have been accompanied by my bouncing, bubbly, tap-dancing, get-up-and-go-loving wife, Kim Preston Scutt. We raised our two sons in Stehekin and welcomed our six grandchildren to this remarkable community at the head of Lake Chelan amidst the peaks of the North Cascades. 

Reflecting on my youth's struggles and the journey from Abington, PA, to Stehekin, WA, soft tears well up in my eyes. I’m grateful beyond measure for those with whom I’ve shared cherished moments.

Thank you to our Sponsors:
Icicle Creek Center for the Arts, Wenatchee Valley Museum, Cashmere Valley Bank, Wenatchee Valley Technical Center, Dan’s Food Market, Eagle Creek Winery and Wenatchee Valley Dispute Resolution Center