EDITOR’S NOTE: Because of several editing errors when this story ran Oct. 11, it is being republished in its entirety.

GIRARD — Except for 10 years in Las Vegas after her husband’s retirement, Carol Bovee has called Girard home.

She’s always kept busy and has worked with her hands. As a child, she would sit and thread buttons while watching TV. That led to her love of sewing and a variety of crafts, Bovee said.

To keep busy these days, Bovee, 81, works at the Warren SCOPE Center as a receptionist. She’s been with the organization for five years.

It was during a class where a woman was showing how to make mats out of plastic shopping bags that a new craft — actually, more of a passion — was born.

During her lulls at work, Bovee keeps busy making these mats that are approximately 4 feet by 6 feet. Being made of plastic, they make a barrier between the dampness of the ground and the individual since many are donated to homeless people.

“I make a strap for them so they can pick it up and take it with them. They can cover themselves with them because plastic is warm. I have actually washed them on the gentle cycle and hung them on the line to dry,” Bovee said.

The mats are donated to the Warren Family Mission, which has direct contact with those who need the mats the most.

“Because some people go to the Mission, and some people go out and sleep under bridges,” Bovee said.

The Senior Showcase, which is a fundraiser for SCOPE, will be at the Robins Theatre in Warren on Jan. 11.

“I’m singing with them. I’ve sung all my life, and Jim Loboy and Len Rome (anchors for Daybreak on WYTV-33 News) will be our announcers. I hope when they open that new theater in Girard they ask me to sing for them, because in 1960 they had a contest, and I won it.”

She was referring to the former Wellman Theatre, which city officials purchased and are planning to renovate.

Bovee was born to Elsie and Henry Graham on July 21, 1943, and graduated from Girard High School in 1962. She’s the middle child between two brothers.

After her father died in a car crash when she was a toddler, her mother, Elsie, later married Eugene Veisz. Her oldest brother, a stepbrother, Gene, was an artist, and he died in 1978. Her other older brother, Bud Graham, was an Aut Mori Grotto clown known as Crackers. Her younger brother, a half-brother, Kenny Veisz, owned Memory Lane Photography on Belmont Avenue in Liberty.

Her first husband died, and she met her second husband, Harry, while on a SCOPE-sponsored bus trip to Atlantic City. They were married for 35 years before he died in August of 2021.

She lives about a block from where she grew up and her daughter, Kelly Whippo, lives nearby.

It was family that brought her and Harry back to the Mahoning Valley in 1991: her granddaughter, Clarissa, was born.

To suggest a Friday profile, contact Metro Editor Marly Reichert at mreichert@tribtoday.com or Features Editor Ashley Fox at afox@tribtoday.com.