USA: Duty Knows No Age - Centenarian Goes To Vote

Lagakis has gone to polls since 1924

BEAUFORT, SOUTH CAROLINA (The Beaufort Gazette), October 31, 2004:

The year was 1924, four years after the historical decision that gave women the right to vote.

It was then a 21-year-old Olive Lagakis, now 103, first cast her ballot in a heated presidential election between Republican Calvin Coolidge and Democratic opponent John William Davis.

"We didn't have voting machines, everything was done on paper (ballots)," she said, recalling the election. "And you certainly didn't get results back that night. Sometimes it would be the next day."

Coolidge would go on to defeat Davis and Lagakis would continue voting for Republican presidential candidates for the next 80 years.

State Election Commission officials believe the Port Royal resident is one of the oldest registered voters in the state.

The lifetime Republican and staunch Bush supporter, now lives at River Oaks Residential Care in Port Royal.

She's legally blind and hearing impaired, but still finds a way to voteâ a right far too many residents take for granted.

"I think its terrible when people don't vote," she said. "They should be ashamed -- it's their privilege and right to vote."

And even though she can't physically be at the polls, she votes via absentee ballot along with nearly 10,000 others in the county.

People could learn a lesson from her, said Agnes Garvin, director of county elections and voter registration.

"I applaud her effort -- to be that age and still vote and take her civic duty so seriously," Garvin said.

It's a duty that Lagakis tries to impress upon others.

Barbara Yeager, a River Oaks Residential Care employee, said Lagakis always tries to stress the importance of voting to the younger nurses.

"She pounds these girls to get out and vote -- she's very civic-minded," Yeager said.

Lagakis spends most of her time listening to National Public Radio and Rush Limbaugh programs, which often inspire Lagakis' meal-time conversations.

Her passion has even spread to her two children, Constantine Lagakis and Jean Benner, both in their 80s. Voting was always stressed to them when they were growing up on Long Island in New York.

"It's something that always had to be done in our family," her son Constantine said. "Not voting -- that was something unheard of."

And that's the motto she will continue to carry as long as she's able to vote.

"I just want to do my civic duty and vote," she said. "It's my right."

By Omar Ford Gazette staff writer

Copyright 2005 The Beaufort Gazette (http://www.beaufortgazette.com)