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Nancy Meidinger figures she’s Coconut Jack’s most consistent jet-ski-rental customer, and at 82, definitely the oldest — and probably the only one who knew Elvis and jogged with Willie Nelson.
But more about that later.
Meidinger, a registered nurse who’s lived in Brownsville since 2010, said she’s been riding the waves at South Padre Island atop a Yamaha WaveRunner for years and still tries to get out on the water once or twice a month, and that Jack’s, an Island-based bar and grill/water sport equipment rental firm, has always been her go-to.
When she’s not doing that, you can bet she’s doing something.
Although retired “theoretically,” as Meidinger puts it, she also volunteers as a pet liaison and Volunteer Community Leader for the Red Cross Texas Gulf Coast Region, and serves as a docent for the Gladys Porter Zoo, where she trained all the zoo employees in first aid and CPR.
Volunteering is something Meidinger knows quite a lot about.
In June, she was recognized with the American Red Cross Volunteer Leadership Award for 70 years of service to the organization, the vast majority of it as a volunteer. Meidinger started out as a Girl Scout and Red Cross candy-striper passing out coffee and distributing mail at the hospital, reprising the role later in life as a Red Cross “Gray Lady.”
Over the years, she’s volunteered for virtually every position Red Cross has to offer in blood, training and disaster services. In 2005, Meidinger went to work as a staffer for the organization’s Nashville-area chapter and was involved in training, volunteer recruitment and disaster response. She retired in 2010. Meidinger has served as a nurse on the precursor to the air ambulance service Life Flight, as an emergency room supervisor, as a consultant working with architects on healthcare facility design, and as a healthcare administrator.
A native of northeastern Kansas whose parents, Dr. Ray Meidinger and Mary Hale Meidinger RN, both were Red Cross Volunteers, after moving to Texas Meidinger served as state liaison for Red Cross and later as health service advisor for the organization’s Southwest and Rocky Mountain (SWARM) Division.
As for Elvis and Willie, it was Meidinger’s move to Nashville in 1969 that had her rubbing elbows with the stars.
“Being a nurse, I took care of many of them and was friends with a lot of them,” she said. “I knew all of them. It was fun.”
The list includes Bobby Bare, Wynonna Judd and Mel Tillis to name a few.
“(Tillis) lived right around the corner from me and his daughter was in my Girl Scout troop,” Meidinger said. “Everybody knew everybody. I used to run into Nicole Kidman in the grocery store. You didn’t think anything about it.”
In 2002, she took over Bobby and Jeannie Bare’s Nashville teddy bear shop and got into the business of making and selling custom teddy bears (ranging from $3 to $3,000) and traveling the country teaching the art of teddy bear construction.
Full disclosure: The part about jogging with Nelson is only partly true. While she and the Red Headed Stranger did both take advantage of the exercise program at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, it was Meidinger who did the jogging while Willie opted for a more relaxed pace.
“He would walk, but he was nice,” she said.
Meidinger said she values her decades of volunteerism in part because of all the great people she’s met, not all of them famous, while the chance to help those affected by catastrophe is very gratifying.
“You meet wonderful people and you have wonderful opportunities with the Red Cross,” she said, noting that volunteers from the Rio Grande Valley are in Guam right now helping deal with the aftermath of Typhoon Mawar, which hit the U.S. island territory on May 24.
“You get to travel and you get to be there in a time of need with the people that have been affected by the disaster,” Meidinger said. “It’s very rewarding. I can’t explain.”
