Mary Lou Kau - Abused Passport

Mary Lou Kau was born in Minnesota but has always considered herself a Montanan.  She grew up in Bozeman, Montana where her family moved when she was six years old.  Mary Lou was brought up in a university environment as her father was a poultry researcher at Montana State University.  Mary Lou describes herself as “never an athlete” in her formative years, as in high school the only organized female athletic team was skiing.  She was not a good skier!  Mary Lou attended Montana State, earning a Bachelor’s of Science (BS) Degree in Microbiology.  The only organized female sports team at Montana State was swimming.  Again Mary Lou was not a good swimmer!

Unsure of the direction for her life to take after graduation, Mary Lou joined the Peace Corp.  She was sent to Honduras where she was stationed from 1964-1966 in a small rural town working in what the Peace Corp termed as Community Development establishing a local credit union.  Mary Lou and a co-worker lived in primitive conditions in a one room house.  The water source was a faucet outside the house, as was a latrine.  The home had one electric light bulb but frequently there was no electric power.  Cooking was done on a kerosene stove.  The water had to be filtered to drink and boiled to use in cooking.  Mary Lou describes her Peace Corp tenure as “challenging but sometimes frustrating “.   Unlike those of us who went to Vietnam in more primitive conditions, Mary Lou positively “remembers Honduras as a beautiful country with happy, friendly people”.  She finds this hard to reconcile with today’s “gang controlled Honduras with its high murder rate and citizens desperate to leave”.  Her experience pales that of present day church sponsored missions where congregation members visit Honduras for two weeks with significantly more amenities.    

Upon return to state side, Mary Lou moved to Seattle, Washington where she was employed as a social worker in child welfare services.  She met and married her husband Jim in 1969, who was a graduate student earning a PhD in Economics at the University of Washington.  Upon Jim’s graduation, they relocated to not so primitive Hawaii for two years.  While in the tropics Mary Lou earned a Master’s Degree in Social Work from the University of Hawaii.  Jim accepted a position with the University of Georgia (UGA) in 1973, requiring that they move to Athens, Georgia.  Mary Lou was employed as a social worker at Saint Mary’s Hospital and later at Athens Dialysis Center.  After the birth of two sons and what Mary Lou describes as a “mid-life crisis”, she enrolled in the College of Pharmacy at UGA earning a BS degree in Pharmacy in 1991.  After a one-year stint at a local independent pharmacy, Mary Lou worked for Athens Regional Medical Pharmacy concentrating in IV and chemotherapy drugs until her retirement in 2007.     

Mary Lou began running for exercise at age 56.  Her first race was the Race/Walk for Home in Athens where she placed 598^th overall but more importantly second in her age group.  After the “motivation” of receiving an award, Mary Lou has run mostly 5K and 10K races finishing in the top three in the female age 70-74 age group.  She ran her first Peachtree Road Race in 2000 and has a goal of completing three more so she will have twenty Peachtree t-shirts for a quilt.  Her favorite race is the Frog Hop.  Mary Lou acknowledges that racing “has allowed her to meet some amazing people” and that she runs to keep fit as well as for the fun of it.  After reading this profile, the rest of us regulars will realize how amazing Mary Lou is!        

Travel is Mary Lou’s “passion”.   She and Jim have been to Europe several times, also South America, Australia, New Zealand, and forty-nine of the fifty states.  Among their more adventuresome travels are Machu Picchu, the upper Amazon, the Galapagos, China, Tibet, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Kenya, Tanzania, India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Morocco, Antarctica, and arctic Svalbard.  She and Jim are planning on revisiting Antarctica in January 2017.  Mary Lou exercises at the YMCA in Athens five times a week, and enjoys trips to Houston, Texas, to visit her five-year old grandson.  

Bob checking out from the back of the pack.  Watch for the profile on speedy Mark Townsend, and profile of Heather Sloan.