MURRAY -- Any one of them could be the subject of a documentary.
They are men and women with mental disabilities. Their childhoods and most of their adult lives have been spent in institutions and group homes. Most have toiled in workshops.Now of retirement age, they are being introduced to the concept of choice by Easter Seals' Seniors Having Abilities, Resources, Experiences (SHARE) program.
Alice Lorna Talbot, who celebrated her 75th birthday this week, is letting her hair grow.
Talbot lived at the state training home for 50 years, starting at age 12 when her mother died. She is mildly retarded and legally blind.
For most of her life, her hair has been permed or cropped short by attendants. Now that she and roommate Joyce Peterson live in their own apartment, Talbot is letting her locks grow long.
Another SHARE participant, Montie Murphy, searches for the perfect oval.
He sits at a table with a plastic bowl, a pair of scissors and a stack of expired real estate listings magazines.
For hours, he methodically tears pages from the booklets, cuts them into precise ovals and deposits waste paper and less perfect ovals into a nearby garbage can.
All the while, he monitors the comings and goings of the craft room at the Murray Heritage Center. When he recognizes someone he knows, he smiles and points to his newly coifed hair.
Murphy, 55, suffered brain damage when he aspirated a peanut when he was 2 years old. He also has developmental delays.
He cannot speak but his bond with his SHARE friends is apparent.
SHARE meets weekdays at the L. Clark Cushing Heritage Center, a recreation center for senior citizens run by Murray City.
SHARE offers programs that support the adults' independence and encourage their involvement with the community.
It enables participants to "retire" to a supervised day program that emphasizes socialization, physical fitness, community recreation and activities intended to enhance their skills and alertness.
On Mondays, the members of the group travels to Salt Lake Community College to get their hair styled. The men get a shave. Friday is movie day. Each week, there is an opportunity to do crafts, exercise, go out to eat and go to movies. They attend workshops offered by health-care professionals. Some days they go shopping.
They also volunteer at the Heritage Center.
On Fridays, SHARE participants Tom Donovan and Bobby Zoellner help sort donations for the Utah Food Bank.
Talbot and Darlene Parkes, another SHARE participant, collate the center's newsletter. Next month, the two women will be honored as the Heritage Center's volunteers of the month.
"I'm going to be on the honor roll," Parkes said.
Easter Seals pays service coordinator Maureen Gallager's salary, but the clients' participation is funded by the Utah Division of Services for People with Disabilities.
SHARE earned high marks in its last review by the division.
"Maureen really knows quite a lot about the things going on in their lives -- where she needs to advocate and where she doesn't," said DSPD's Taunya Day, who helped conduct the evaluation.
"They received 'deemed status,' which means that next year we won't be reviewing them because they did quite well. There's a lot of positive things happening there."
Gallagher said the Heritage Center provides a wealth of activities to the Easter Seals clients, who have shared space at the facility with Murray seniors for about nine years.
There's seemingly something to suit everyone's interests.
"When we first met Bobby (Zoellner), we didn't know anything about him. When he saw the organ here, he went tearing over to it," she said.
"He knows how to play it. It's staggering."
Gallagher has high praise for each program participant, reeling off one anecdote after another about them as if she were a grandmother showing off photographs of her grandchildren.
Murphy, for instance, is a gifted artist. His paintings have been displayed at Art Access.
Talbot's nickname is "No Knots Alice" because she doesn't knot the yarn she uses in her hand crafts. Her roommate, Peterson, also does intricate stitch work.
Donovan retired from Snowbird after working there 12 years. "It took him 2 1/2 hours to get to work every day," Gallagher said. "Can you imagine?"
SHARE gives its clients structure, a community and a sense of independence. Without such supports, many participants would be placed in nursing homes, Gallagher said. Most now live in apartments and travel on FLEXTRANS, specialized busing for people with disabilities.
"They are the first generation of older adults with special needs who have a retirement program available to them," Gallagher said.
"They deserve this much. To me, these guys are the survivors of the universe."
Parkes, 63, said SHARE enables her "to do almost anything I want to do."
"I'd be lost. I make a lot of friends out here."