20-Year Helpers Honored With a Grand Send-Off

Students and staff of the Lowman Special Education Center helped Jo and Frank Rimkus celebrate a second retirement Wednesday.

The couple ended 20 years of volunteer service with flowers, pictures, thank-you notes and a plaque at a luncheon in their honor.

The Rimkuses are known to students as their “every Wednesday” friends.

Every week since 1978, the pair spent more than three hours at the North Hollywood school for severely handicapped children.

Jo Rimkus, 78, sewed bibs, and Frank, 84, repaired equipment and made customized prosthetic devices to help the students.

The two first got involved with the center when Frank retired from his job as a mail carrier and Jo from her secretarial job. A neighbor told them the school needed help, and they became volunteers.

But the couple is retiring now because the work is too strenuous, Frank said.

“The work was getting a little bit heavy, and when you get older, the spirit is willing but the body won’t cooperate,” he said.

Frank and Jo celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary Feb. 26.

They plan to spend some time visiting family, including Jo’s sisters in Canada and Kentucky.

“We have some traveling to do,” Frank said. “We hope to get away and catch up with old times.”

They said they were overwhelmed by the outpouring from the school.

“We really appreciated all the friendship. All these 20 years, it was really nice working with them,” Jo Rimkus said.