FAIRHOPE, Ala. — For the first time, the glittering ball dropped down on a new year in New York City a few hours before Verdus Plunkett was born on Jan. 1, 1908.

Tomorrow, the Walker County native will achieve centenarian status with her 100th birthday.

While today’s news and current events lean to the gloomy side, they won’t bother Plunkett too much. While she loves to read and doesn’t wear glasses, she doesn’t watch television.

“I haven’t even turned it on since we moved here,” she said.

Times were more simple in 1908, or at least they seem so compared to 2008. No “Big 3” buyout then. Henry Ford rolled out his first Model T that fall; it cost $825.

At Kitty Hawk, there were no security or baggage checks, just the Wright Brothers demonstrating that their flying machine really did work.

It was a leap year, and Jack Johnson leapt upon the world stage on Dec. 26 when he became the first African-American heavyweight boxing champion, defeating Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia.

Americans’ love affair with baseball was in full swing and in 1908, for the first time, they heard the song that has become synonymous with the sport: “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

The Chicago Cubs took the World Series, and William Howard Taft took the White House.

Americans were looking forward, dreaming of things that had never been. According to Jim Rasenberger, on Feb. 1, 1908, a cartoon was published in Harper’s Weekly that imagines a future of wireless technology, including a “portable wireless telephone” that will enable users to “talk while you walk.”

Such was the world that welcomed Verdus Plunkett to the community of Kansas, Ala., near Carbon Hill. Born to John David Studdard and Carolyn Aldridge Studdard, three brothers and one sister preceded her into the family.

Her father, who owned a coal mine, she said, died when she was young.

Plunkett graduated from school at 16. She said she then began teaching school in Montgomery with a temporary certificate. She also continued her own education, and over the years, earned bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in education. She took courses at Howard University, Auburn, Tuscaloosa and Huntingdon.

While serving as a sixth-grade teacher at Maxwell Air Force Base and other Montgomery schools and attending school herself in the summers, Plunkett also found time to marry Eddie Plunkett and have a family. She also likes to crochet and hook rugs.

“Teaching was fun, but when I was growing up, there wasn’t much else you could do,” she said reflecting on her career.

Plunkett said she always gave her students a party at the end of the school year.

Eddie died at age 84, and Verdus, who was quite a bit younger, retired from teaching at the middle school. After that she did some substitute teaching at colleges around the state during the summers.

Last year, Plunkett moved to Fairhope to be near her daughter, Carolyn. Soon thereafter, Carolyn was diagnosed with dementia and now lives in an assisted living facility. Plunkett lives alone in the house she had planned to share with her daughter.

“I would love to go back to Montgomery,” Plunkett said, “but I will stay here,” she said, adding that she had a cat and her grandson, Phil Law, to keep her company.

Some information for this article came from the book America, 1908: The Dawn of Flight, the Race to the Pole, the Invention of the Model T and the Making of a Modern Nation, by Jim Rasenberger.