A Little About Me: Get to Know James Morris

People sometimes ask me what I do at the Redmond Senior Center. The easy answer is that I'm the Marketing Director. The real answer? Well, that gets a little complicated. On any given day, I may be working on Senior Moments, designing a flyer, creating something for social media, updating a website, writing an article, promoting an event or trying to come up with the next big idea. Five minutes later, I may be helping someone with their cellphone, answering a computer question, listening to someone's story or trying to figure out why something that worked perfectly yesterday suddenly doesn't work today.

And honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way. This is probably the busiest job I've ever had that has never really felt like a job at all.

So, How Did I Get Here?

I grew up in Concord, California, in the East Bay Area. I have one brother, who now lives in Baltimore, and my parents eventually moved from California to Colorado. Two things grabbed my attention when I was young: creativity and technology. I took up photography when I was about 16. But I didn't want to just take pictures. I wanted to find unusual ways of looking at things and turn photographs into art. I think I got that creative side from my mom. She was an artist who worked in wire wrapping and beading, and her work was sold in high-end boutiques around the country. At about the same time I discovered photography, I discovered computer programming. And I was hooked. I moved through my programming classes so quickly that my college instructors made me a teaching assistant while I was still taking their classes. Looking back, the combination of technology and creativity has pretty much followed me ever since.

Eventually, those technology skills led to a phone call that changed my life. I was recruited by Les Schwab to become a Lotus Notes Administrator at the company's headquarters in Prineville. I got the job and moved to Central Oregon in September 2000. I spent the next 20 years at Les Schwab. When the company moved away from Lotus Notes, I reinvented myself as a .NET developer. From there, I moved into IT quality assurance and eventually became an IT Release Manager. Then COVID happened. I was given the opportunity to retire early, so I did. Well...sort of.

Apparently, I'm Not Very Good at Retiring

After leaving Les Schwab, I started my own business as a content producer, which I still do today. It allowed me to bring together many of the things I love: photography, graphic design, video production, writing and technology. I also started writing books. My first novel, California Highway, follows a musician taking a road trip along Highway 1 and learning about himself along the way. While writing that fairly inspiring story, for reasons I still can't completely explain, I thought, "What if I did the same thing...but with a serial killer?" That resulted in Highway 1 Homicides, followed by Highway 66 Homicides. Don't worry. I've lightened up since then. Today I'm working on more fiction, but I've also found another reason to write. I've been creating books specifically to help seniors, including You Got This: Windows 11 Guide for Seniors, The Guide to AI for Seniors and Peace of Mind: An End of Life Guide for Seniors. As you'll see, that desire to help people has become a pretty important part of my life.

Finding the Senior Center

Before working here, I was involved with Dry Canyon Arts Association. I initially helped with its website and eventually became a board member, helping with technology and marketing. That's where I met Randy Graves. A few years later, I happened to be looking through available jobs online and discovered a Marketing Coordinator opening at the Redmond Senior Center. Randy was already familiar with me and my work. He hired me. And it has been quite a ride ever since.

After working on my own for about four years, being back in an office took some getting used to. But one thing caught my attention immediately. Everyone was incredibly friendly. The longer I was here, the more people got to know me. And as they got to know me, something else happened. They started asking me for help. Today, people routinely stop by my office with computer or cellphone questions. Sometimes they just want to talk. And somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking of everyone here simply as members or coworkers. They became family.

Why It Matters to Me

That word, family, means a lot to me. My parents were high school sweethearts and were married for more than 50 years. I lost both of them in 2018. My dad passed away in February. During the months that followed, my brother and I helped care for our mom. She was bedridden and needed hospice and home care. Eventually, my daughter came to help, too. My mom passed away in August. It was an incredibly difficult period for all of us, but it also changed the way I look at aging. I saw firsthand how much help people can need. Today, whenever I'm working on something creative, I still feel a little bit of my mom there with me. And I think the work I'm doing at the Senior Center would make her more proud of me than ever.

Sometimes, You Just Need Someone to Take the Time

One experience here has stayed with me. A member heard that I helped people with computer problems and scheduled an hour with me to learn Windows 11. Her son normally helped her, she said, but he was too busy. When she arrived, I could tell she was frustrated. We sat down together and started going through her questions. An hour became two. By the time we finished, we had covered everything she wanted to learn. She gave me a big hug and started tearing up because, as she put it, someone had "taken the time to help this old woman." After she left my office, I had to grab a tissue myself. That experience eventually helped inspire my Windows 11 book for seniors. More importantly, it reminded me why I'm here.

This Is the Place to Be

I'm proud of a lot of things we've created at the Senior Center, but Senior Moments holds a special place for me. Funny enough, when I started, Randy specifically told me he didn't want a magazine. Sorry, Randy. I kept finding more things I wanted to put into our newsletter. More stories. More resources. More information. More things happening around the Center. Eventually, the newsletter grew into the magazine you're holding today. But whether I'm creating this magazine, promoting an event, helping someone with technology or just listening, it all comes back to the same purpose. Senior isolation is real. As we get older, we lose friends, family members and acquaintances. Sometimes people simply don't know where to go. I want them to know they can come here.

And let's get one thing straight: the Redmond Senior Center isn't just for seniors. We aren't sitting around drinking coffee and gossiping all day. Okay, there is coffee. But this is an active, vibrant community. You can have lunch, take a class, learn something new, meet people, volunteer, ask for help, laugh and simply enjoy being around other people. That's why I love marketing this place as "the place to be." Because that's what I believe it is.

Someday I'll retire again. Maybe I'll actually be successful at it the next time. But if another Marketing Director eventually sits where I sit today, there's one thing I hope they understand. The people who walk through our doors are your family. Every person matters. You never know what someone is going through or how much it took for them to walk through that door. You may even be the only person they have that day. So take the time. Listen. Help when you can. Because if you can make a difference in just one person's life, you've done something pretty wonderful. That's why I'm here. And I can't think of a better job to have.