Long-time Pocatello resident Geneva Jensen Borrowman celebrates her 100th birthday on Jan. 5.

She was the fourth child born to Elmer and Annie Jensen in Burton Idaho in 1918. Geneva taught second grade at Whittier and Roosevelt Elementary for 21 years, where she influenced the lives of more than 500 students at a crucial time in their young lives. She was one of the first to work in the Follow-Through program of Head Start to help disadvantaged children. She also served as president of the 5th District Classroom Teachers Association in Pocatello and as a six-year member of the Idaho State Textbook Adoption and Improvement Committee. She was honored with the Master Teacher Award by School District 25 in 1980, two years before her mandatory retirement at age 65. Geneva was a proud member of the Alpha Kappa Delta Teachers Sorority and was inducted into the Classroom Teacher Hall of Fame in Boise in 2000.

Geneva’s memories of the past 100 years are sharp and clear. She lived all but five of the past 100 years in Southeastern Idaho; two years in California during World War II and the past three years in Coolidge, Arizona, where she lives with her son. She particularly loves the 52 years she spent in Pocatello with her husband, Reed Borrowman, who passed away in 2001. He is buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Pocatello. Together they attended hundreds of live plays at Idaho State University’s Frazier Hall and Stephens Performing Arts Center, and were season ticket holders to the symphony at Goranson Hall. Late in retirement, she worked as a volunteer in the Boy Scouts program, serving as Blazer Scout Advisor and Troop Committee Chair well into her 80s.

Geneva is a genial and outgoing person who still sends handwritten thank-you cards and who makes multiple phone calls to friends and family in Idaho and the rest of the country. At age 98, she learned how to text so she can remain connected to her four adult children, her 19 grandchildren, and her 53 great-grandchildren, as well as their spouses. Her eyesight is failing, but she remains grateful that “I can still see color” and by using a large illuminated magnifying glass she still reads magazines and books. She is a person who finds great joy in life.

Geneva’s mother emigrated from Denmark in 1912. She lived to age 105, as did Geneva’s older brother Arthur, who passed away earlier this year in Idaho Falls. She has a cousin who lived to age 103 and an aunt who made it to 108. So it is likely that there are many happy years left in Geneva’s remarkable life.

In addition to birthday celebrations in Utah and Arizona with family, she plans a community reception in Pocatello on July 20, 1918, when the roads are easy for friends to travel. You can send well wishes to her by email at gpatrol14@gmail.com.