Volunteer of the Week

Jim Reitz

Jim Reitz has basically done it all, Osher at CMU-wise. He started as an Osher Ambassador (formerly known as “Study Leader Assistant”), is currently a member of four Osher committees, and will co-lead a class starting October 31 called All About Osher.

“I’m enjoying working with the 25th Anniversary Committee,” he told me. “It has allowed me to interview Osher members and CMU administrators, and assist in creating the History of Osher at CMU video for the 25th Anniversary.”

Jim takes a wide range of Osher classes himself, literature, science, and general interest classes. This semester, it’s Short Stories and Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot.

He also finds it important to volunteer for various CMU student research projects, and he urges all Osher members to avail themselves of this opportunity. He also spends a night a week at Family Hospice in Lawrenceville, and is very involved in church activities at First Unitarian in Shadyside.

His wife, Mary Heath, who died two years ago, was also very involved in Osher. Jim has four children and six grandchildren. He retired last year from the business brokerage firm he owned for 35 years. He’s been a runner for 45 years; he’s completed 27 marathons.