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You might occasionally wish you had paid better attention when you were in school. Or, if you鈥檙e like me, you just didn鈥檛 develop an interest in certain things until well after you had that diploma.

Educators know that as humans progress through various developmental stages, we are more receptive learners at certain times. Youngsters are curious about any number of things, but as we age, our areas of interest change and expand.

Someone (possibly Henry Ford) once said, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e never too old to learn something new!鈥� Regardless of who said it, it鈥檚 a worthwhile mantra.

In a recent post on ALL鈥檚 Facebook page, Lois Jenkins, advisory board secretary of (ALL, originally Academy of Lifelong Learning) welcomed all opsimaths to ALL.

Jenkins followed with the definition of that word-of-the-day: 鈥淔rom the Greek words meaning 鈥榣ate鈥� and 鈥榣earn,鈥� an opsimath is a person who begins to learn things a bit later in life. This inspiring word reminds us that education knows no age limits. Embrace the spirit of the opsimath and keep learning!鈥�

Just last week the Pioneer announced ALL鈥檚 fall season, starting with the Sept. 24 presentation: "Preserving the Public Land System: The Original Fabric of Land Ownership" with Kevin Trappe and staff from the Beltrami County GIS Department. (Sorry if you missed it.)

Future presentations will be held every Tuesday in October and the first two Tuesdays in November at 10 a.m. at the Bemidji Eagles Club.

Fall 2024 topics cover a wide range of interests from law, crimes, and legal issues to medical, mental and physical health, to business and economics, travel, culture, history and anthropology 鈥� a fair sampling of the topics that have been featured since ALL started in 1997.

Organizations like Bemidji鈥檚 ALL were springing up all across the state in the 1990s and before, especially after the Minnesota Humanities Center was founded in 1971. The MHC, in conjunction with the National Endowment of the Humanities, works with organizations and communities 鈥渢o bring humanities programming into the lives of Minnesotans.鈥�

Park Rapids and Clearwater and Polk Counties were starting organizations of their own at the same time. Today the Headwaters Center for Lifelong Learning (HCLL of Park Rapids) and the Northern Exposure to Lifelong Learning (NELL of Clearwater and East Polk Counties) collaborate with Bemidji鈥檚 ALL to share information, ideas and presenters.

A group of innovators, many of them educators from the area, started holding organizational meetings in 1997 to develop a 鈥減rogram to keep seniors intellectually active during their senior years.鈥�

Among them were BSU music professor Fulton Gallagher and educator and patron of the arts, Betty Rossi, who became the project director. Among the early presenters were educators and local experts like Marlin Kaul, Annie Humphrey, Gerald Schnabel, Ruth Stenerson, Anne Dunn, Evan Hazard, Joe Vene, Louise Mengelkoch, Tom Swanson, Brad Swenson, Earl Dickinson, Vince Beyl, and too many more to list here.

In addition to topics for the fall of 2024, past presentations ranged from ancient to more recent history, philosophy, art, music, government, current trends, the environment, local and regional issues, services and organizations, and Native American history and culture.

Grants from the MHC helped ALL get started. The organization was originally associated with the BSU College of Liberal Arts and Letters. Then Dean Judy McDonald was instrumental in ALL鈥檚 early development. Presentations were hosted at the public library or in churches.

Contributed

After a while, ALL became connected with BSU鈥檚 Center for Research and Innovation, their money managed by the BSU Foundation. Meetings were promoted by Kerry Ross and held in the BSU CRI facility north of town.

Over the years, however, the Bemidji ALL has become its own entity, managed by the ALL advisory board. Choosing not to take on the complications of becoming a 501(c)(3), ALL operates purely on donations.

Free will donations from attendees who show up regularly are the main source of funding. Speakers and presenters are paid a stipend and mileage unless they represent a government or other organization that does not permit their receiving of such.

Ernie Rall has chaired Bemidji鈥檚 advisory board for several years. News bulletins are sent out via email and Facebook and are posted around town. They list upcoming presentations for spring and fall seasons, encourage people to share their experiences in future presentations, and ask readers to recommend speakers and to share what they want to learn about. Presenters of all ages share information. Seniors are encouraged to present as well as to attend.

Refreshments of coffee and cookies or coffee cake are available at 9:30; presentations run from 10 to 11 a.m. and a half-hour question session follows. Attendees are encouraged to provide feedback after each presentation.

Lots of regulars show up each week, Jenkins says, 鈥渁nd sit in their own pews,鈥� referring to attendees鈥� tendency to sit in the same seat from week to week. Jenkins says history and travel are favorite topics, 鈥渁nd we love to be entertained.鈥� On average 54 people attend; 43% give comments. The most common comment: 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 know that!鈥�

鈥淎nd that,鈥� says Jenkins, 鈥渋s why we are here.鈥�

For the full listing of the 2024 fall session presentations, check out the Facebook page or the event schedule on Page A5 of the Sept. 25 edition of the Pioneer.