T-L Photos/ROBERT A. DEFRANK ABOVE: Grace Rosen of the Centerville Senior Center gives a New Year’s kiss to Willard Bilyeu of the Centerville center Tuesday, when seniors celebrated New Year at noon at Bellaire.

BELLAIRE — Senior citizens from Bellaire and Centerville rang in the New Year Tuesday afternoon with a preview of a New Year’s Eve party during a gathering with cheers and celebration at the Bellaire Senior Center.

“We started this last year, this is our second year. We get more seniors every year,” Bellaire Senior Center Director Tish Kinney said. She pointed out seniors are often asleep by midnight. “The seniors enjoy it because they’re not going to see midnight. … We’re singing and we’re dancing and we’re going to have dinner and door prizes and we’ll do it again next year. It’s just nice to get all the seniors out and to enjoy New Year’s Eve early. … It takes a lot of volunteers to pull it off, and fortunately we have a lot of volunteers at the Bellaire center.”

“I think it’s wonderful that we have the senior center and we get all of these great things that we’re able to do for seniors,” Ann Hodges, president of the Bellaire Senior Center, said. “I think the county is very good for us. They’re good to us. We have a great time and they’re always behind us. … We’re an active group. We do a lot of things. We got to visit the nursing homes around here. We have people that lived here that are in the nursing homes, and we go to Centerville. … It’s a very good place to be. It’s a very good place for seniors to be.”

“The seniors never get to celebrate New Year’s Eve because they’re always in bed by midnight, so let’s have a New Year’s Eve day party and have the countdown to high noon,” Lou Ann Bennett said. “So we started this and it just took off.”

Upcoming projects include donating Easter baskets to kindergarteners at Bellaire Elementary School.

People from the Centerville Senior Center also attended the event, and that center’s director, Donna Steadman, said they were happy to participate.

“We were invited down,” she said. “We were going to do our own celebration. We decided to celebrate together.”

She said about 75 seniors in all were expected to attend.

Dave Milovac of Bellaire, a member of the Centerville and St. Clairsville Senior Centers, performed music.

“I think it’s beautiful. Everybody getting together the way they are now, you can’t beat it,” he said. “They always have a good thing going at all the senior centers, and now since I’m a senior I can join right in with them.”

Joe Cioppi, who said he has been a member of the Bellaire Senior Center for 29 years, said he values the fellowship.

“Everybody gets along,” he said. “You make good friends.”

“I love it,” Doris Stephens of Bellaire said.

“We have a nice group of people here,” Ruth Hanson of Bellaire said.

“We’re having a ball,” Barb Milhoan of the Centerville Senior Center said.