When asked how she feels about her upcoming retirement, Elaine Connelly smiled brightly and exclaimed, “I am beyond excited.”
After 24 years at UNL, it’s understandable why Elaine would look forward to a break.
During her tenure with UNL, Elaine Connelly has worked for the maintenance department, NET, mechanical engineering, and agricultural meteorology. When SNR moved to Hardin Hall, Elaine Connelly took responsibility for several floors of the building, ensuring the School’s smooth transition. She now works as a sales staff with Nebraska Maps and More. She is a remarkable witness for the School’s transformation.
That said, Connelly’s ready for a change.
“I look upon retirement as a new start to my life,” she said.
With this new start, Elaine Connelly hopes to tackle some new projects. She is looking forward to sewing a quilt for each of her grandkids, volunteering, cleaning her house top-to-bottom, and rehabilitating animals. But first: a visit to her sisters in Oregon and her daughter in South Carolina.
When Elaine Connelly gets back to Nebraska, she wants to train a service dog that she can take to nursing homes to visit the elderly. The idea for this project came from watching her own mother respond to visiting service dogs while under hospice care.
“The love in my mother’s eyes when she saw those puppies,” Connelly recounted, “they brought her so much joy.” Connelly hopes to be able to bring others the same kind of joy.
A seventh-generation Nebraskan, Connelly calls herself “a flat-lander, born and raised.” She plans to stay local in Lincoln throughout her retirement. Much of her time will be spent with her three kids, five grandkids, and eight great-grandkids who live in Lincoln or nearby.
But one plan tops all other plans for her retirement.
“I plan to take it easy and not get up to the alarm clock.”
From all of us at SNR, we thank you, Elaine, for your unfailing help throughout the years. We wish you the best of luck on this new start.
Come help SNR celebrate Elaine Connelly’s retirement at an open house in the Nebraska Maps and More Store, this Thursday, June 27, between 2-4. We look forward to seeing you there.