Even though she "officially" retired Dec. 16, 2005, don't think for a moment that Tooele's Beverly White is finished making the world a better place in which to live. At age 77, Bev says she still has lots of ideas, tons of energy, and plenty of time to complete several more projects.

The only daughter of Gus and Helene Larsen, Bev and her two brothers, Bob and Steven, lived with their parents in Salt Lake City until she was about 14 years old.

"Then we moved to Tooele, and I've been here ever since," she said.

Two years after marrying Floyd White, who passed away in November 2004, Bev and her husband built the house in Tooele in which she still resides.

"I have been in this house for 55 years," she said.

And it was in that house the Floyd and Beverly raised their five children, including: Susie Morris, of West Valley City; Doug White, an attorney who lives in Bountiful but has a law office in Tooele; Robyn Cavaness, of Montana; David, deceased; and Wendy McCleery, of Taylorsville.

Bev has 13 grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren with one more on the way.

A graduate of Tooele High School, Bev received her diploma at age 16.

"I had to pass an articulating class to graduate early," she explained. "Joe Shutz, who died a month ago, and I were the youngest graduates of our class."

As a young mother, Beverly spent as much time as she could with her children, but she also worked part-time during most of their "growing up" years.

"In fact, I have worked either part- or full-time since I was 13 years old," she said. "When my children were young, I would work at J.C. Penney's during Christmas time. I worked a lot of other part-time jobs as well."

Bev's first government job was serving as the Tooele County Clerk under the leadership of Jay Kirk, Sr. She then worked for the Utah Division of Alcohol and Drugs for a number of years.

"That was a part-time job, but along with Ron Lunsford [who now lives in Colorado], we started a lot of rehabilitation programs for people addicted to alcohol and drugs," she said.

In 1970, Bev received the shock of her life when she was called by then-Utah Gov. Calvin L. Rampton and asked if she would represent Tooele as a state legislator for the next year. Chilean Halladay, who had been elected to that job, died with a year still remaining on his legislative term.

Bev consented to finishing the term, vowing she would never run for election. But when 1971 rolled around, she found herself on the state representative ballot. Little did she know at that time that she would be elected 10 times as a state legislator & each term consisting of two years.

"I am a Democrat," Bev said with a big smile. "Back in those years, Tooele was a very Democratic area."

The service Bev is most proud of as a state legislator was setting up programs for women and children.

"I was very interested in the Displaced Homemakers Act, which allowed women who had served most their lives as wives a mothers & then got into a situation where they needed to go to work to receive schooling," she said. "I was able to get that law passed and I'm very proud of that. There were a lot of women who were falling through the cracks. They were too young for Social Security and they had no way of supporting themselves or their children. The bill allowed them to receive government funding to learn a skill or trade."

Along with then-Senator Karl Swan of Tooele, Beverly was instrumental in bringing Salt Lake Community College classes to Tooele. Many of the women who attended those classes did so with financial aid from the government.

"I think we had eight or nine students the first year we brought the program to Tooele," Bev said. "The next year the student numbers increased to 13. Eventually there were 600 students taking college classes at Tooele campuses."

As a state legislator, Bev also spent a lot of time setting up community service programs for the federal government.

"I wanted to offer something to those who were convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs other than merely serving jail time," she said. "I think that having them give back to the community, rather than just locking them up, helped both the offender and the community."

After serving in the Legislature, Bev was hired in 1984 by the Tooele office of Adult Probation and Parole (AP&P) to oversee the community service program in this county.

"It was harder to work in Tooele than in Salt Lake," she explained. "Here in Tooele, I had to make court-ordered work assignments to neighbors, friends and a lot of people I knew. It was important to be fair to everyone. Even if I knew someone, I had to treat them like I treated all offenders."

Of course, treating all people the same means that Beverly treated everyone with respect. She didn't "judge" them for their crimes, and when she would later meet them on the street or in the neighborhood, she would smile and act as if she didn't even remember they had committed a crime.

Most of the work Beverly assigned to those who were court-ordered to do community service was maintenance-type work.

"The offenders would clean up or do repair work around city and county buildings," she said. "If they were not sex offenders or had not committed an alcohol or drug crime, we would even send them to work near schools if there was a need there. I sent people to help at local charities like the Deseret Industries. There were also a lot of churches who benefited from their labor. And the senior citizens centers, both in Tooele and Grantsville, had their sidewalks shoveled in the winter time and weeds pulled in the summer by offenders who were ordered to do community service."

In addition to maintenance work, Bev said there were some "professional" people who were ordered to do community service. She would utilize the special skills of those offenders in offices or other programs.

Always meticulous and efficient, Bev kept track of the work she did for AP&P. From 1984 to Dec. 16, 2005, she assigned 4,790 individuals community service. That number translated into 368,693 hours of work that was ordered, with 289,124 hours being completed.

The monetary value of the court-ordered work, calculated at a rate of $5 per hour from 1994 through 1997, then $8 per hour from 1998 to 2005, was $1,445.620. Yet, the operation of the program cost only $189,000. And some of that cost was reimbursed to Tooele County by the Federal government.

While Beverly mostly worked with male offenders when she first stated with AP&P, she saw a 23 percent increase in female offenders during the last 10 years. In all, Bev assigned 1,104 women community service to compensate for crimes they committed.

Bev even kept track of the age of the offenders. Fifty-seven percent of those assigned community service were between the ages of 18-29; 21 percent were 30-40 years old; and 17 percent were 41 through 69 years of age.

Although a lot of offenders came into Bev's office "with a chip of their shoulder," a lot of them left "feeling good about themselves," she said.

With a laugh, Bev said out of the 4,790 people she worked with over the years, all but Ôabout two' claimed they were not guilty of the crime they had been accused of doing.

Now that Bev has retired, the state has decided not to fill her part-time position of assigning court-ordered work to those who break the law. She's not sure how that job will now be handled because it took her at least 20 hours a week to keep the program going.

"I guess the AP&P agents will just have to use their best judgment in how to handle the community service program," she said.

In addition to the jobs for which she received monetary compensation, Bev has given literally thousands of volunteer hours to her community and church. She loves to sing and is the choir director in her LDS ward.

Now that she is retired, Bev plans to do some traveling. She is also thinking about writing a book about the years she spent assigning work-related punishments to people who committed crimes.

"There's so many stories I could tell," she said with a laugh. "Although most of the offenders never admitted they had done anything wrong, I think a lot of them felt a lot better about themselves after doing the service."

And one of Bev's big projects in the coming years will be to work with people she says were adversely affected by tests conducted at Dugway Proving Ground.

"There's too many people in this county with multiple sclerosis (MS) and cancer that is not heredity, but rather caused by the environment," she said. "Although the Board of Health will not agree with me that Tooele has a higher than normal rate of people with tumors, MS and cancer, I know there is a higher rate of those disorders in this county. I have access to boxes and boxes of papers I want to go through. I want to find an attorney and others who will help me. There are families that are suffering because of the environment in which we live, but who are receiving no help from the government & and that is a sad."

In talking about today's world, Bev says things have changed a lot since she was a young.

"My parents never went into debt for anything, and that trait rubbed off on me," she said. "If my parents needed a new refrigerator, they saved their money until they could pay for it in cash."

Long ago, Bev made a "wish list" of things she would like to have in her life. She wanted a flagpole in her front yard. One year her children bought and installed that pole for her on Mother's Day.

Bev wanted a grandfather's clock, and she was able to save her money and purchase one. She also got a computer after saving money to buy the one she wanted.

The only thing on Bev's "wish list" she still doesn't have is a Lincoln Continental.

"I don't think I will ever get that," she said. But then with a grin she adds, "I did have a Toyota Celica, which was a fast little sports car. I loved that car but my kids hated me driving it. They talked me into getting rid of it a couple of years ago. I now have another car. It's not fast and fun like the sports car & but it gets me where I need to go."

Bev says that even though she's now 77, there's still a lot of things she can do. "I'm not an old woman who's just going to sit around and do nothing," she said. "There's still plenty of service I can offer."