Every few minutes or so during Wednesday afternoon’s Great Futures Luncheon at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Hopkinsville-Christian County, so many people stopped by to say hello to “Mrs. Portia” Mann.
And for good reason.
From 2015 until her second retirement in 2022, she served the organization in a variety of roles, including Power Hour Homework volunteer, classroom assistant and finally as lobby supervisor — where she monitored kids coming in and out of the building.
More affectionately known as “Granny,” she served as a matriarch of the group — before the death of her husband, Frederick, and ailing health forced a move to Indianapolis, to be closer to family.
During her time, she witnessed marked growth of the club.
She also called her time there “uplifting,” and more like a family situation she loved.
Prior to her time in Hopkinsville, Mann’s childhood and first career came in Trigg County. Formerly a Ladd, she’s a 1964 graduate of Trigg County High School — who spent 32 years at Johnson Controls on old U.S. 68 before her first retirement.
In fact, she’s returning to Trigg County next weekend, in order to celebrate the old Wildcats’ 60th anniversary.
It’s a momentous occasion for a group that came into adulthood on the heels of desegregation, the growing tensions in Vietnam and southeast Asia, and in retirement battled severe health concerns during the COVID-19 outbreak.
In fact, this class hasn’t reconvened since before the pandemic, and she’s since had a hip replacement, a knee replacement, and these days is, in her words, “limping a little bit” and sometimes “more than others.”
Kentucky was her home for more than 70 years, and admittedly, she misses it.
Apparently, she’s missed, too.
