Page 4 - RVO What Women Want May 2017

4VV • What Women Want • An Advertising Supplement to the River Valley & Ozark Edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette • Sunday, May 7, 2017
MALLORY MORRIS / CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER Lori Dather, 51, is director of nutrition services for the Conway Regional Health System. The marathon-running married mother of seven said her advice for other moms is, “Be yourself; be real.”
MARATHON mom Conway mother of 7 loves running
BY TAMMY KEITH SENIOR WRITER
It doesn’t take long to be impressed by Lori Dather of Conway when you hear two numbers: seven, the number of children she has; and 24, the number of marathons and ultra marathons she’s run.
Dather, 51, is the new director of nutrition for the Conway Regional Health System, a position she calls her “dream job.”
A native of South Dakota, she is married to her high school sweetheart, Darren, and they have lived in Conway for 17 years.
About those seven children: “This is where the Lord has a sense of humor — I wanted zero. Honestly, I’m not even joking,” she said.
“I was going to go to Harvard, get into research, get my Ph.D. and travel. The Lord had such a different plan for me. Right when I decided to rededicate my life to Christ, I wanted a baby,” she said. Then she wanted six more.
“I was pregnant and breast-feeding for 10 years,” she said.
She recalled that when 14-year-old Emily, their young- est, was born, “I looked at my husband and said, ‘I’m done.’ It was this overwhelming peace of just completion. I’ll never forget. He said, ‘Hallelujah!’”
Dather (pronounced day-ther) has four daughters and three sons: Alexi, 24, who is teaching in South Korea; Andrew, 22, a senior at Harding University in Searcy and a wide receiver for the football team; Caleb, 21, a junior at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock; Lyndi, 19, a freshman at the University of Central Arkansas; Katie, 18, a senior at Conway Christian High School, bound for Harding to play volleyball; Jesse, 16, a sophomore at Conway Christian; and Emily, 14, an eighth-grader at Conway Christian.
Dather has a little spiel she gives when people’s eyes widen when she tells them she has seven children:
“I say, ‘I’m not Catholic. I’m not Mormon, one hus- band. I birthed them all, no twins, and yes, I know what causes that,” she said, laughing.
A former athlete, she played basketball at Southwest Minnesota State University and at South Dakota State University, her alma mater. She became a dietitian and worked in various venues, including at a hospital with post-surgery patients. The Dathers also lived in Charleston, South Carolina, for a while.
From the time Dather got to Arkansas, she knew what she wanted to do.
“I looked at this job [at Conway Regional] as my dream job,” she said. However, Scott Whitehurst, who was in the position before her, was a longtime employee.
If you’re feeding your passion, your kids
see that.”
— Lori Dather
The reason it was her dream job, she said, is because “it’s a local hospital, so just being part of a community — being able to ask, ‘What can I do for you?’ Food is just such a good way to minister to people.”
Until the position came open, she served as director of nutrition for the Arkansas State Hospital. She moved to the Midwest Dairy Council and worked from home for seven years, encouraging participation in school breakfasts and lunches, working against hunger and getting grants.
Her position with the Dairy Council was transferred to South Dakota, and the same day she found out, Dather saw that the position for director of nutrition services was open at Conway Regional.
“I was up till midnight applying for this position,” she said. Dather oversees 40 employees, including cooks, reg- istered dietitians, cashiers, servers, aides, supervisors and assistants. She is busy coming up with new ideas to per- sonalize the food service and give patients more choices.
“I really love it here. It’s a lot of adjustment from work- ing from home,” she said.
Dather said she doesn’t pretend to be a perfect mother. She seems to be somewhere between the nurturing perfec- tion of June Cleaver on Leave It to Beaver and the funny, stressed-out Frankie Heck on The Middle — a show Dather loves, by the way.
Raising seven kids has been a whirlwind of sports, school and church activities, but Dather doesn’t put herself last.
“I refuse to be that martyr mom; you’re really not benefiting your kids,” she said. “If you’re feeding your passion, your kids see that.”
Dather said that in 2007 she looked in the mirror and decided she needed to get in better shape. She started at the McGee Center in Conway by herself, walking two laps, running one. Finally, she started running with a friend. She joined the Conway Running Club about six years ago, and it meets at 5 a.m. every day.
“This has really transformed me,” she said of running.
At the end of her first marathon in Wynne, she recalled that her husband and 21-year-old son, who was then 12, were at the finish line.
“I still see it — Caleb started running with me to the
finish line. ... I will never forget that as long as I live. “That’s kind of what started the madness,” she said.
“Every medal has a story.” And there are lots of stories. She has run marathons in various states in all kinds of weather, including snow and ice. She had to cross a river up to her thighs, and one part of the course had a 1,000-foot drop-off, which was sloped. “I actually got on my hands and knees and crawled. I was so scared I was
going to get dizzy and drop off.”
She ran one 50-mile race in Texas.
“That was amazing,” she said. “The last 4 miles, I felt
like my feet never touched the ground.”
In another race, she climbed the east side of Pinnacle
Mountain at mile 4.
“Your quads are just done after that,” she said. The War
Eagle race in Rogers is “really tough,” she said, recalling that [the temperature] was 104 degrees when she finished a couple of years ago. “People were passing out; it was horrible.” She’s run the Little Rock Marathon three times.
She has won one marathon: the Stanky Creek Marathon in Tennessee.
It was six times around “this woody, slushy, icy area, with puddles everywhere,” she said.
Many people dropped out at the halfway point, she said. She fell backward and slammed one side of her body into a log, but she kept going.
That was one of many times that she said she thought, “I have no business doing this.”
But she keeps running. To her, it’s about her health, as well as a testament to goal-setting and perseverance.
Her goal for the Louisiana Marathon was 4:30; she made it in 4:29.
“It was one of the highlights. I was giddy. I was teary- eyed; I cried a little bit,” she said.
Dather is the only marathon runner in the family. Daughter Lexi has run a couple of half-marathons with her mom, and Katie will run a few miles with her, too. Dather’s husband prefers weights and the stair climber.
She said their children, including the three still at home, are good kids, self-sufficient and responsible. They make their own school lunches, apply for scholarships and keep up with testing deadlines.
On Mother’s Day, they’ll make the meal, and she’ll get a text or phone call from all of her children, “which makes me happy,” she said.
She already has her Mother’s Day present — sessions with a personal trainer.
After all, Dather is getting ready to run her 25th mar- athon in July.