Douglas County Senior Services is honoring Jim and Virginia Seaver with the newly created Seaver Volunteer Leadership Award at the organization's fundraiser Thursday night.

From the comfort of chairs inside the Lawrence Senior Center, Jim Seaver has shown the world to those who never were able to travel that far.

“I had thousands of slides that I used extensively in my lectures,” Seaver said. “I’ve visited about 30 countries.”

Among those countries are Israel, China, Italy, Great Britain and Greece, all of which he’ll show to anyone who’s interested. He does so regularly at the senior center, 745 Vt., which is operated by Douglas County Senior Services.

Day in and day out for 20 years, Jim and his wife, Virginia, have delivered meals to Douglas County seniors who can’t leave their homes.

“We just stopped because of health problems, but we’ve still agreed to fill in,” she said.

The Seavers – Jim is 88 and Virginia is 87 – have been giving back to the Lawrence community for most of their adult lives. And because of that, Douglas County Senior Services will present the couple with the newly created Seaver Volunteer Leadership Award at the organization’s fundraiser Thursday.

Lois Mead, interim executive director of senior services, said the decision to honor the Seavers was a natural.

“To be quite frank, there were three of us discussing it,” she said. “When we decided it would be a good idea to recognize someone, two of us looked at each other and said, ‘Jim and Virginia Seaver.'”

The Seavers moved to Kansas in 1947, after Jim was hired as a professor at Kansas University. Until his retirement in 1989, he directed the Western civilization program, taught medieval history and even spent a year coaching the Jayhawk men’s tennis team.

That team, which played from 1948-1949, won a Big Seven Conference championship. Seaver had played on the tennis team at Stanford University, where he received his degrees – and met his wife.

Virginia, like Jim, has devoted a substantial portion of her life to volunteering for several local organizations. She has served on boards including the Kansas Commission on Constitutional Revision and the League of Women Voters.

Both serve on the board of The Villages, a group that provides support and homes to Lawrence and Topeka children who have been abused, neglected or abandoned.

“People just kept asking me to do one thing or another,” she said. “I’d always say I need to talk this over with my husband, knowing full well his answer would be, ‘Why not?'”

And though Jim spent a lot of his time in academia, he still carved out time to develop a hobby that gives back to the community.

Since 1952, he has hosted the “Opera is my Hobby” show on KANU radio. Though he started the show on Tuesdays, it soon moved to 7 p.m. Fridays, where it remains to this day.

“I fell in love with music at 13 when I attended an opera,” he said. “Things worked out, though, so I stayed in academe instead of converting to music.”

He does, however, occasionally sing operas and regularly attends them in the area. On his radio show, which he refers to as “a labor of love,” he plays music from the thousands of records he’s collected during the years.

The Seavers have three sons, all of whom are returning home to see their parents receive their award Thursday.

The fundraiser starts at 6 p.m. in the ballroom and lobby of the Eldridge Hotel, 701 Mass. Aside from the honor for the Seavers, events include a silent auction, jazz band and dinner. Tickets are $50 per couple and will be available at the door, Mead said.