FARMINGTON — Sylvia Yeaton would have preferred to stop working after she retired from teaching after 35 years.

But Yeaton, 57, dropped that idea once she considered the cost of the health insurance she carries to cover herself and her husband.

So today Yeaton is the special projects manager for the Franklin County Emergency Management Agency. “I really like it,” Yeaton said of the job, “because it is helping the community in a different way than teaching.”

Yeaton works about 25 hours a week, creating a data base of special needs individuals in Franklin County. The idea, she said, is to have contact information for the physically and mentally disabled, as well as for the elderly, so they can be readily checked on in case of an emergency.

Such a job appeals to Yeaton’s sense of social responsibility, a quality, she said, was shaped in part by the civil rights movement and Vietnam protests of the 1960s and early 1970s.

During the Vietnam war, Yeaton was enrolled at the University of Maine at Farmington, earning her teaching degree.

UMF was no Kent State. But it wasn’t silent either.

“There were pockets of activism,” she said, “but I don’t think we were out there like lots of the larger universities. (Vietnam) made a huge impression on a lot of us in that era.”

Yeaton sees a difference in the social consciousness of baby boomers compared to later generations.

“I think we had a really good work ethic,” she said, “and we cared about issues ... It’s hard to imagine why people (today) are not as involved with social concerns.” Colin Hickey — 861-9205 chickey@centralmaine.com