County Magazine Blog

Healthy County Boot Camp, TAC's Health and Employee Benefits Pool’s (TAC HEBP) annual wellness conference returned for its 13^th year. This year’s conference was held Feb. 9-11 at Kalahari Resorts and Conventions in Round Rock with options to attend in person or online.

Attendance for this year’s conference beat last year's all-virtual format with an attendance total of 252 attendees – 178 in-person and 74 online. At the conference, attendees and TAC HEBP staff were energized by being able to see members again face-to-face.

"I'm excited for it just because it is a conference that we get to attend in-person," said TAC HEBP Employee Benefits Consultant Jonathan Collander who joined TAC over the summer. "We spent the last couple of years attending so many things virtually, so I'm excited to get out, to see faces."

The theme of this year’s event was "From Survival to Revival," and presentations focused on moving forward after living with the COVID-19 pandemic. Neurohumorist Karyn Buxman was mentioned as a favorite session by many who attended. Her two presentations on the first day focused on how we can use humor to alleviate stressful situations.

"I think a highlight this year was Karyn Buxman and her talk about joy and happiness after two years of, of COVID and the stress that has come along with that for so many people and how much our lives have changed," said Mark Zollitsch, TAC HEBP Wellness Consultant. "It went so well with the theme of our conference. We want to revive our members, revive our program, and revive people's hearts and minds across the state and throughout our counties."

From sunrise to sunset, the in-person sessions of the conference were packed with opportunities to get to know one another, with options to do a walk, yoga or line dancing.

"I hope that our attendees will be energized, recharged and leave feeling like they have fresh information at their fingertips that they can share with their fellow members and employees," said Zollitsch. "And I also hope they feel appreciated and thanked for what they do … because I don't think we have a single person who this is their sole full-time job is wellness coordinator or sponsor and they have all these other obligations."

For more live coverage from this year's conference, listen to the latest episode the Texas County Voice out now.