Claire Manzo affectionately calls herself the “bird lady,” recalling when she’d find little birds while growing up in Union City, N.J., and run them up to the attic before feeding them bread and water since she wasn’t allowed to keep them inside the house.
Manzo’s love of birds continued through life. After moving moving to Tellico Village eight years ago, she started the bird watching club, where she has served as president, program director and on the clean-up committee, with her husband serving as treasurer.
While Manzo describes herself as “a step up from the novice” when it comes to bird watching, she has had success in building a community of bird watchers.
“We started out with 12, and now we’re up to 82,” she said. “Not everybody comes to a meeting. It’s hit and miss.”
Barbara Colaw, who has been a bird watcher all her life, joined the club and has been impressed with Manzo’s ability to organize the group.
“It’s interesting, and it’s something I enjoy,” Colaw said. “I didn’t know (Manzo) until the bird club. Claire was almost a beginning birder. She’s just really, really good at getting the group together and getting things done. When she organized it, I just supported it because I loved it. She’s very good at what she does.”
After the club joined the Tennessee Bluebird Society, dues were raised from $5 to $10 to allow $5 to go toward the society.
“We started monitoring the bluebird boxes,” Manzo said of the club’s first project. “... We have over 100 bluebird boxes we monitor between Kahite, Toqua and Tanasi. We check for a nest, eggs and how many baby birds were born.”
Now that the club’s been underway for several years, the group is to bring in different speakers each month to talk about birds.
“It has grown a lot,” Colaw said. “The people who are in charge of the blue birds on the golf courses — they have people who monitor those. It’s a club that welcomes long-time birders and new birders.”
Besides birding, Manzo also enjoys organizing trips to Lake Lure, N.C., for the Corvette Club, the HomeOwners Association and the Vintage Car Club.
She’s also organizing a trip to the McCloud Mountain Restaurant & Lodge as well as a trip to Franklin.
“I’m on a first-name basis with Lake Lure,” Manzo said since organizing her fifth trip there this year.
She also arranges trips to the Tennessee Theatre for a group of 15-20 people and line dances three times a week.
“I think I’m the oldest dancer here,” Manzo said. “I just turned 76. It keeps the heart pumping.”
Manzo helps new members of the line dancing class who may feel overwhelmed when they first join by taking time to work with them one-on-one when the class is not meeting.
“She’s really good about it,” Toni Grovier, leader of the line dancing club, said. “If they’re having a little trouble with line dancing, she’ll take a group of them and help them out and teach them. She does it on her own time. She likes to help a lot of people. ... As far as volunteering to help when I’m out of town, I know she’s even had a couple of people to her house to help them. She goes the extra step to help people.”
Before moving to Tellico Village, Manzo worked as a real estate agent where she’d bring in $12-$14 million in sales per year, she said.
“Real estate was the best and worst thing that happened to me,” she said.
Other events took priority after moving to Tennessee, allowing her to focus energy elsewhere.
“I still have my license,” she said. “I do referrals.”
Manzo attributes her success in the real estate business to being raised in a competitive family, with one older brother and one younger brother.
“I’m a very competitive person,” she said. “I was raised very, very competitively.”
