Senior Inforum swings at the Thornton Center

Music Through the Years brings a crowd to the annual event.

Senior citizens from across Northwest Georgia turned the clock back through the decades for Music Through the Years at the 30th annual Senior Inforum on Thursday.

Between 450 and 500 seniors from Tallapoosa to Ringgold traveled to Rome to enjoy music, dance and learn about services provided to seniors from vendors across the eight-county area.

Rome Mayor Jamie Doss welcomed the crowd to Rome and said seniors remain important in each of their communities.

“You vote, you love the community, we need you,” Doss said.

Seniors from Floyd, Bartow, Polk, Gordon, Haralson, Paulding, Walker and Catoosa counties filled the Thornton Center in Armuchee for the event.

Sandy Komiskey, Ms. Senior Georgia from Alpharetta, was a special guest of the event.

She said she’s had a blast since winning the title last August, traveling the state and meeting people from all over Georgia.

“So far I’ve done over 7,000 miles throughout the entire state of Georgia,” Komiskey said. “I usually go to a town for a week and I go all over the place.”

Komiskey said all of the seniors she’s met have so many different stories to tell about their life experiences. “I met a lady who is 107 and she still does her own shopping,” Komiskey said. “These people are just amazing.”

The seniors enjoyed a lot of line dancing and even got some dance lessons from Katie Kiser and Chase Tolbert, a couple of the Celebrity Dance Challenge’s pros, who showed off steps to a lot of dances through the decade including the Charleston, jitterbug, swing and disco.

“I was impressed with their footwork,” Kiser said.

Tammy Bryant, the special populations director for the RomeFloyd Parks and Recreation Department which hosts the annual event, explained that she has anywhere between 4,500 and 5,000 seniors who are actively involved in programming which her offices supervises the active seniors.

“This is an annual event that is sponsored by our Seniors Promotion Council and it’s just a day for seniors to come out and have fun,” Bryant said. “We’ve got some great entertainment, some great information from our vendors who are all senior resources.”

Doug Walker / RN-T Georgia Jennings (from left), Haralson County; Kelly Pollack, Ms. Senior Coosa Valley Fair; and Mary Clark, Haralson County, do a line dance during the Senior Inforum at the Thornton Center in Armuchee on Wednesday.

BELOW: Roman Edward Daniels, with Blues Connection, works over the keyboard. The theme for the event was Music Through the Years. Photos by Doug Walker, Rome News-Tribune

ABOVE: Between 400 and 500 seniors from across eight counties filled the Thornton Center in Armuchee for the 30th annual Senior Inforum on Wednesday.

ABOVE: Members of Blues Connection entertained between 400 and 500 seniors at the 30th annual Senior Inforum.

Photos by Doug Walker, RN-T LEFT: Ms. Senior Georgia Sandy Komiskey (from left) of Alpharetta and Joe ‘Elvis’ Dowdy of Rome dance at the Senior Inforum.