Photo by Tom Campbell Hugh Henry says the farm at Historic Prophetstown reminds him of his youth.

Hugh Henry, BS ’39, is all smiles when you ask him about his volunteer work, but when you ask him about turning 90 years old this year, his smile becomes a little strained.

So what does turning 90 mean to Henry? He says it doesn’t mean a whole lot, just another year down and a few more to go.

“I don’t plan on slowing down too much. As long as I can continue to stay active and healthy, I don’t see any problem,” he says.

Henry has been retired for 23 years from Purdue’s agronomy department, and he has been so involved in volunteer work that his wife, Marge, 89, worries that he overdoes it sometimes.

One of Henry’s biggest jobs right now is taking care of the street median on Cumberland Avenue in West Lafayette. His primary responsibilities are planting or trimming trees, weeding and pruning, planting flowers, and picking up litter. Two or three days a week, Henry makes his way out to Cumberland to spend two to four hours on his landscape duties.

This “job” is strictly volunteer, but according to Marge, he treats it just as if it were a paying job.

“He hasn’t really ever retired. He has continued to work every day since the first day of his retirement,” she says.

Just after he retired in 1982, Henry was recruited for volunteer work in an organization called the West Lafayette Tree Fund. Founder Helen Lillich, 82, says that Henry is the best thing that has happened to the Tree Fund.

“I don’t know what we would do without him,” Lillich says. “The amount of work he does is phenomenal; you take a ride on Cumberland

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