WATER FUN AND FITNESS: 99 Safe Activities

Presents stunts, games, and exercises at varying skill levels designed to make learning to swim safe and fun

Terri Elder has been teaching swimming to people of all ages and skill levels since 1971. She is the aquatic coordinator and associate director of the Heskett Center for Campus Recreation at Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas. Previously she had been a high school aquatics director and swimming coach.

Elder has also worked with the Kansas Special Olympics, where she developed a swim training program for special athletes that was adopted statewide. In 1987 she received the Special Olympics National Coach of the Year Award.

A longtime volunteer, Elder has devoted much of her time and effort to the American Red Cross. She has been a Water Safety Instructor Trainer since 1978 and has trained hundreds of instructors in 18 aquatic schools. She helped rewrite the Red Cross’s national "Learn to Swim" program in 1990, contributed to its 1992 text and instructor’s manual entitled Swimming and Diving, and served as the technical resource and on-camera host for its 1993 video, Aqua Fitness. She is also a coauthor of Aquatic Fitness Everyone.

Elder is a member of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD) and its Aquatic Council, as well as the Aquatic Exercise Association. She is a life member of the Commodore Longfellow Society of the American Red Cross.

Elder earned her master of education degree in physical education from Emporia State University in 1985. She and her husband, Steven, and their three children, live in Newton, Kansas.