The Highland County Senior Citizens Center's annual Senior Expo packed up its usual spot and set up shop Tuesday at the Patriot Center, a 25,000-square-foot multipurpose venue at Southern State Community College built to hold crowds the center's regular facility simply couldn't fit anymore. Running from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 100 Hobart Drive, the free event brought in more than 60 businesses and organizations offering resources for older adults and their caregivers, along with chair volleyball, bingo, a costume contest and live music.
The move wasn't just about having more elbow room for a good time. According to The Times Gazette, executive director Mechell Karnes said the expo had been “bursting at the seams” at its regular location in prior years, and organizers needed a space with expanded seating, parking and room to properly lay out dozens of vendor booths. The Patriot Center, which Southern State Community College built in 2005, can seat up to 2,500 people for large gatherings, according to the Scioto Valley Guardian. The college, chartered in 1977 to serve a five-county rural district that includes Highland County, also used the venue for its May 2026 commencement, where it graduated 258 students, per the same account.
Vendors Pour In From Seven Counties
Vendors at the expo came from Highland, Adams, Brown, Clinton, Fayette, Pike and Ross counties, per the Scioto Valley Guardian's reporting, turning the event into a regional gathering rather than a strictly local one. Southern Hills Community Bank served as the presenting sponsor, and sponsorship records the bank published show Medicare agent Altha Bodner backed the expo's bingo session, Thompson Funeral Home sponsored the guest costume contest, and HealthSource of Ohio sponsored chair volleyball, according to Southern Hills Community Bank. Engineering firm McCarty Associates also helped design the new spatial layout inside the Patriot Center, the bank's records show.
The activities carried their own rules. Chair volleyball was open to players 18 and older, while bingo — which began around 2:20 p.m. and was also restricted to adults 18 and up — offered a free first card with additional cards available for purchase, and organizers expected to give away more than 60 prizes. A vendor pumpkin-decorating contest and a costume contest, which awarded prizes to its top three entries, rounded out the day alongside lunch available for purchase.
A Center Serving Highland County Since 1970
The Highland County Senior Citizens Center, also known as Highland Seniors, is a nonprofit that has served Highland County since 1970 and serves people age 50 and older, helping them stay active and engaged in the community. The center runs daily lunch, fitness and home-delivered meal programs out of its facility on Muntz Street in Hillsboro. The organization originally opened at the Highland County Fairgrounds before relocating to its permanent Muntz Street address in 1975, and founder Rosalie Morgan secured initial state and local funding in 1970 and served as director for 25 years, according to The Times Gazette's reporting on the center's 55th anniversary.
That meal program reaches 20 to 30 homebound seniors daily through dietitian-approved hot meals, delivered in a custom-equipped Ford Transit vehicle purchased in part with a $10,000 grant from South Central Power Company, the paper's reporting shows. The center also received a $12,750 grant from National Cooperative Bank in November 2025 to upgrade kitchen equipment, part of $50,000 the bank awarded across Highland County nonprofits, according to a corporate release from National Cooperative Bank. Meals go to both private-pay clients and low-income seniors enrolled in state support programs, including Ohio's PASSPORT program, which the Area Agency on Aging District 7 administers locally to provide Medicaid waiver services as an alternative to nursing home admission across its 10-county south-central Ohio region, per the Supreme Court of Ohio.
Why the Crowd Keeps Growing
The Highland County Health Department, which has operated in the county since 1920 and provides public health and clinical services to residents, also took part in the expo. The department runs a mobile clinic called the Care-A-Van that travels rural townships weekly from April through September offering immunizations, blood pressure screenings and basic laboratory services, according to agency records — a reflection of how spread out the county's population remains, with 73% of Highland County residents living in rural areas.
The growing turnout tracks with the county's shifting age makeup. U.S. Census Bureau estimates reported by USAFacts show roughly 8,800 Highland County residents were 65 or older in 2024, about 20% of the county's total population, with a median age of 41 that runs slightly higher than both state and national averages. For many of those residents, fixed incomes make resource fairs like this one more than a social outing: Census data reported by Point2Homes shows Highland County households headed by someone 65 or older had a median income of $42,817, compared with $80,224 for households led by adults aged 45 to 64, with roughly 16% of the county's seniors living below the federal poverty level.
