50 Plus: For Lynchburg pair, Virginia is the new Florida

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“They’re slowly turning away from retiring to Florida,” said John Powers, who settled in Lynchburg after a 30-year career in the Air Force. “They’re rediscovering the mountains.”

Powers, 62, and his wife Martha Herron, 55 and also an Air Force retiree, moved to Lynchburg from Washington, D.C., five years ago.

At the time, Powers, who worked as a lawyer for the Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG) and later served as the Air Force’s chief trial judge, had just retired and was mulling over a job offer from a D.C. law firm.

Herron retired in 1998 after a 20-year career, in which she held a slew of different posts, including serving as an executive officer with the maintenance squadron responsible for Air Force One and, later, as the U.S. Forces Japan Protocol Officer, a job that had her planning itineraries for visiting dignitaries like Madeleine Albright and Vice President Al Gore.

“I would’ve had to stay in the D.C. area, where the (law) jobs are,” Powers said of the law firm’s offer. “Or I could do something bold and daring and get out of the legal profession. Do something different.”

Boldness won out, and he took a job as E.C. Glass High School’s JROTC instructor.

It didn’t take long for the couple — who, during their time in the Air Force, lived all over the U.S. and in Germany, Italy, Japan and England, where they met in 1988 — to fall in love with the area, especially the location of their Forest home.

“When the leaves fall off the trees, I can see the Peaks of Otter,” he said. “We like the people, the Blue Ridge Mountains, the convenience of everything.”

After one year at Glass, Powers decided it was time to really retire, and he and Herron began volunteering.

“You get yourself involved in the community, and before you know it, your calendar is filled every day of the week,” he said.

And, Herron added with a laugh, then “you have a hard time finding time for yourself.”

They’re both active members of the Lynchburg Area Tree Stewards, a group of volunteers who plant and prune trees in the area.

Herron is also a Master Gardener intern who loves nothing more than working in their backyard garden, which has taken on a life of its own since they moved in.

“It started small, and it keeps coming this way (toward the house),” she said. “You have to do it little by little.”

An early riser, Herron said she’ll often spend her mornings out there, checking up on the flowers and vegetables she grows.

“It’s the closest thing to heaven for me,” she said. “You don’t think about any problems. You’re just nurturing these plants and making something beautiful.”

Powers shares her love of nature, but not necessarily gardening.

“I like the fruits of her labors, and I sometimes help out doing the grunt work,” said the Virginia Master Naturalist, whose latest outdoor hobby is beekeeping.

A love of the outdoors and their own garden sanctuary is more than enough to keep the couple occupied — and satisfied.

“If I live to be 95,” Powers said, “this will always be a work in progress.”