At age 80, Fred Lendrum has not slowed down much. After a 46-year career that included two stints at (and two retirements from) Ohio State ATI, Fred is keeping plenty busy with travel, mission work, and his 25-acre mini-farm west of Wooster.
Fred came to Ohio State ATI in 1981 after 21 years as an ag teacher in northwest Ohio, where he taught just about everything -- shop, plant growth, livestock, and soils. Recruited by Norm Stanley, he joined the Ohio State ATI Agricultural Technologies division, teaching equipment operation and small engines, later expanding to golf course equipment maintenance, diesel engines, welding and engine overhaul. He also served as acting chair of his division for more than a year.
Fred's travels have taken him twice to Kenya with a group from Shreve United Methodist Church, where he has worked on a project to bring water to a Kenyan village -- most recently with his grandson, a civil engineering graduate of Ohio State University. Most of his travel with his wife, Carla, has been purely for pleasure, however. Together, they have visited Alaska, the Holy Lands, the Grand Canyon, and they are currently planning a Panama Canal cruise.
Fred stays connected to Ohio State ATI through the Out to Lunch Bunch (a group of Ohio State ATI retirees) and serving as a judge for the state FFA ag mechanics and small engines skills contests. "I'm the unofficial secretary of the Out to Lunch Bunch," Fred said, explaining that he organizes the monthly lunch and an annual summer activity, like this summer's visit to the Ohio Star Theater in Sugar Creek.
"We had a lot of fun at Ohio State ATI because we came from different backgrounds but we worked together and became family," Fred said. "We had and still have a loyalty to the institution and to each other."