The Progressive Seniors Club brings together area senior citizens interested in the welfare of all senior citizens. Progressive Seniors works to improve health care, the physical environment as well as social and economic status. Our goals are to strive for better conditions and treatment of the elderly; and to create a friendly and sympathetic attitude toward the elderly by working with local city officials, as well as on the state and national level on issues, which will affect senior citizens.

Our president and founder was Lucille Chenault, who was president of the Senior Citizens Task, Force, a planning committee for the Cincinnati Model Cities Program. At one point in her life, she became ill and was confined to a nursing home. But this time opened her eyes to the challenges of seniors. Many nursing home residents shared with her how lonely they were. Mrs. Chenault made this promise to her friends in the home:

“When I get out of here, I am going to do something so that all the lonely and forgotten people will come together one day out of the year in one place, get dressed up, socialize, dance and interact with each other”.

Her dream became a reality in 1974 when, along with help from her friends – Majority Leader, William L. Mallory, James Covington, George Brown, Hubert Guest, and Doris Brown—they created the ball. Even though Mrs. Chenault had many physical challenges, she attended every ball until her death on April 2, 1989.

Because of the popularity of the ball, news spread and in September of 1983 the late Mr. Charles Kuralt, former News Anchor dispatched a team of news anchors to Cincinnati to cover the history of the ball at the request of Dr. Bruce Bossman. Dr. Bossman at that time was head of the Geriatrics Department at the University Hospital of Cincinnati Medical Center. The news anchors that came in during 1983 interviewed the now late Mrs. Lucille Chenault, the founder. With that information the 20th Annual Ball was broadcasted in more than 25 countries by the CBS Sunday Morning Show. This brought national attention to this event. At that time our local CBS station was known as WCPO Channel 9 and played a very significant role in helping to disseminate information for the bull in conjunction with the Sunday Morning Show. When this was broadcasted abroad we received numerous calls nationwide from individuals congratulating us for doing a well-done ball at that time. They even remarked “they never seen anything like this.” They even questioned how this was done and wanted to know how they could plan this event in their city. Mr. Charles Kuralt, CBS News, 1983