Just showing up for your birthday when you’re a 104 is quite an accomplishment. Driving from Star Valley, Wyoming, to Pocatello to shake hands is incredible. That’s what Lloyd Baker did last week.

    He jumped in his 1996 Honda manual shift car and drove the entire distance. By the way, Baker also works about 30 hours a week at his surveying business in Wyoming, Lloyd B. Baker & Associates, LLC.

    “Retirement is for old people and I don’t plan to get that way,” Baker said as he prepared to have a slice of birthday cake at the Museum of Clean last week.

    Lloyd keeps a pocket full of M&Ms with him at all times and gives them credit for part of his longevity. He also said it’s important to eat natural salt and drink plenty of water.

    “Everything we excrete has salt in it,” Lloyd said.

    His youngest sister, Elsie Walker, 85, of Afton, Wyoming, was on hand to slice the cake.

    She said the family home in Star Valley was build in 1988 by her grandmother and it was the first home with a wood floor and shake shingle roof.

    “She spent a winter in a tent and an overturned wagon and she decided she didn’t want to spend another winter in a tent,” Walker said about her grandmother.

    Lloyd was one of nine children born to his parents and he said there was 14 inches of snow on the ground when he came into the world. Most of those children have lived into their 90s.

    “It took two days for my father to come see me when I was born,” Lloyd recalled.

    He took an interest in engineering early in his life and graduated with a degree in civil engineering from the University of Wyoming in Laramie in 1940. His early career was with Bechtel Corp. where he did projects like laying out railroad tracks near San Francisco. That escalated into being responsible for nuclear power plants in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

    He returned to Wyoming in 1973.

    “I grew up on a small milk farm in Star Valley,” Lloyd said. “We milked cows before and after school.”

    He attended a three-room elementary school in Etna, Wyoming and that where he developed his love of learning. He also loved baseball as he moved up to high school.

    Lloyd became the team’s pitcher.

    “We played the best team in Star Valley and held them to one hit,” Lloyd recalled.

    Success and longevity is not limited to Lloyd. His brother Wayne Baker, 91, and Dick Casull founded Freedom Arms in Freedom, Wyoming, back in 1978. The company started with mini-revolvers and has grown to produce the .454-caliber Casull revolver.

    Lloyd’s nephew and president of Freedom Arms today, Bob Baker said his uncle is incredible during last week’s birthday party attended by family and friends from Wyoming, Utah and Idaho.

    “He doesn’t quit,” Bob said.

    Lloyd had a simple explanation for his more than a century on the planet.

    “The more good I can do with my body, the longer the Lord’s going to leave me here,” Lloyd said.