Meet Your Neighbor
Scotty Thompson
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER
She is the lean, mean muscle machine who has become a familiar sight rollerblading with speed and grace down the Milestone bike path. Known to all as Scotty, Scott Clauss Thompson is a body builder and personal trainer, but inside her steel-like frame is a creative softie who enjoys gathering shells, greens and colorful berries and spending time with her daughter, Marlee.

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent

"People think I'm a big, tough animal but I'm just a regular girl," she said recently, sitting in her well-equipped exercise studio on Fairgrounds Road.

Born in Buffalo, N.Y., she was raised in Canada. After graduating from high school in 1973, Thompson spent about six years in Aspen, Colo., skiiing and as a restaurant manager and caterer. While in Aspen she met Nantucket's Marshall Thompson, then working at the Club Car, now owner of Even Keel, and, at his urging first came to the island in 1978.

"I came to visit and ended up staying," she said.

Thompson worked at the Second Story and Ship's Inn restaurants. After her daughter was born in 1990, Thompson began managing Simply with Style catering, a business she remained with for 10 years. And though the catering field was physically demanding during the summers, Thompson recognized in 1998 that when times were slow in the off-season, she was pretty inactive and gaining weight.

That was when her life changed. Thompson joined the gym at the Nantucket Health Club, and then owner Jane Hilger took notice. Hilger told Thompson she was genetically suited for body building, a point Thompson took seriously, starting a weight training program she adhered to for several months, then was encouraged to enter a state body building competition. At the age of 43, the novice, exhibiting pure sinew, took home all the honors in every event, winning the entire female division.

"There were no competitors my age so I had to go up against women under 35," she recalled. "It was a great experience."

It was also grueling to maintain such a standard, and in 1999 Thompson decided to become a professional personal trainer. She opened her own studio in 2001, and at the age of 52 has developed a regimen that works for her. Six days a week (unless it's pouring rain or snowing heavily) Thompson either rollerblades 10 miles from the Milestone rotary to Tom Nevers and back or runs five miles in woods or on the beach, as well as weight trains three to four days a week. Then she attends to her clients, numbering approximately 25 who use her studio.

"I love it," she said of her lifestyle now. "It's really a lot of fun. It's nice to find your calling at some point in life."

Thompson's range is wide, in that she works with high school students and also had the late David Halberstam as a client. But she admitted that she does "pig out" sometimes and that she does eat "everything." That is partly because every pound of muscle burns 50 calories a day. Thompson, at a weight of 135 pounds of muscle, said even when she is sleeping she gets thinner. No fair, say the flabbies among us, but that is the way it is. Thompson can enjoy pizza and chocolate without losing her physical fitness.

Thompson is very happy now with her business and family life. She likes to travel, but does not feel any great urge to do anything other than what she does today.

"It has been a nice life," she said.

"Nantucket has been very good to me." I