On 80-year-old Sharon Carlson’s crown of pink dyed hair, she’d donned a similarly pink flapper’s feather headband. It read “Happy New Year!” in silver glitter. 

“I’m always much happier when I’m wearing pink or purple. Today, I wore this color,” she said, gesturing to her beige sweater. “But I was trying to be the Happy-New-Year type.”

When Carlson turned 50, color “happened” to her. She can’t exactly explain her affliction, but she’s certainly felt the symptoms. 

On Carlson’s farm in Wallsburg, where she raises chickens, goats and a basket’s worth of fruits with her son, you’ll find purple fences and an orchard adorned with fairy lights. In Carlson’s room, there’s an explosion of pink. 

Her flowing pink locks are the latest evidence of her obsession. Carlson had her hair dyed in 2025 with Allie Mecham, who she calls the second of “The Three Stooges” in her close-knit friend group. 

Carlson was one of about 120 seniors who crowded into the Wasatch County Senior Citizen Center on Tuesday to ring in the new year over lunch. To mark the occasion, Carlson brought her grandmother’s velvet coin purse, which was adorned with a button from her grandfather’s suit. 

“She gave it to me four years before she died,” Carlson explained. Her grandmother lived to be 104. 

In 2026, Carlson will be expressing her burst of color through oil painting.

Carlson wasn’t the only partygoer planning on picking up new talents through the senior center’s programming.

Last year, Shelly Hokanson resolved to learn something new every day.

In August, she began her learning journey by taking the senior center’s ceramics course. By Christmas, she’d made gifts by hand for each of her 22 grandchildren. Chess sets, piggy banks, dinosaurs, jewelry boxes — she sculpted it all in those feverish four months before the holiday.

In 2026, Hokanson will first set her sights on tai chi.

“I think it’s a martial art, but I don’t really know. That’s why I’m going to go try it out,” she laughed.

Hokanson said the senior center has been the perfect place to make friends. Her husband died in 2020, and her 11 kids have left the nest. 

“Going from 13 to one is really wild,” she said. “I needed to just be around friends. … I’m trying to fill my life with something that keeps me happy.”

Mike Winward, the senior center’s director, said that participation in the 60-plus social club has grown significantly in his past four years of leadership. That can be owed to an increase in programming, which stemmed from Winward’s desire to change the culture of the senior center to “someplace where you could just relax and kick back,” and word of mouth. Winward said lots of people insist, “I’m not old enough for that,” before realizing they’re not being invited to an “old folks’ home.”

In 2026, Winward said the senior center is going to continue to “party like crazy.”

Lifelong Heber City resident Vickie Todd remembers dropping off both her mother and grandmother at the senior center. Now 75, Todd herself participates. She’s seen an increase in activities and has made more friends through the center than she can count.

She’s also observed plenty of change in Heber City. Todd said that when she was growing up, kids rode bikes and horses to school, and there were barely any cars. With U.S. 40 now feeding into Main Street, that fact has certainly changed.

Meanwhile, Merrill Hall sticks to Wallsburg, where she has lived for over 30 years, for its small-town feel. It reminds her of growing up in Slaterville in Weber County.

Other than turning 100 in April, Hall can’t quite remember what she accomplished in 2025. 

“I’m too old,” she cackled.

Hall’s resolution is to stay active in the New Year. Although she has difficulties standing, she refuses to use a cane or walker and continues to climb the stairs at her home. She even stood for the Pledge of Allegiance before lunch.

The centenarian’s advice to Wasatch County residents going into 2026 is simple: “Be good and enjoy life.”

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Clayhouse Studios in Kimball Junction hosted their final installment of a six-week wheel throwing pottery course Monday morning, Jan. 2, 2017, beginning at 10 a.m. The course, which only saw two participants this cycle, taught students how to throw clay on a wheel and featured a lesson in sculpting on the class’s last day. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

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In this week’s collection of portraits from For The Record, we asked people at Ritual Chocolate Factory & Cafe if they were feeling hopeful or apprehensive about the new year. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

The post PHOTOS: For The Record | Dec. 29, 2016 appeared first on Park Record.