Preston Holladay’s hearing is shot, and his cognitive skills aren’t as sharp these days, but the Colorado Springs resident still loves to fish at Eleven Mile Reservoir and, when he’s lucky, grill his catch with a little butter and lemon.

Pretty rare, considering he’s turning 105 this month.

“I appreciate being able to go to church on a Sunday and being practically 105,” he said before settling into a potluck lunch.

“Not many people get to do that,” he said.

An early celebration after Sunday’s service at Pikes Peak United Methodist Church seemed like déjà vu to those who attended Holladay’s 100th birthday party five years ago.

“He’s a marvel,” said the Rev. Dea Sharp, pastor of the small westside church. “With COVID on our minds, to think that he’s lived through the Spanish flu and is still with us here.

“He blesses us with his presence and support of our ministries.”

A 110th bash is not unrealistic, say family members, who gathered to help wish their father, grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather a happy birthday and many more.

“Longevity is common in our family,” said his youngest son, Dennis Holladay.

Numerous relatives have lived into their 90s, Dennis said, including his mother, Lois, who died in 2009 at age 93.

Preston Holladay is among the United States’ 97,000 centenarians, people who have made it to 100 and beyond. That’s the most of any country in the world, according to the United Nations, but Japan has the highest rate, at 6 per every 10,000 residents, show statistics from WorldAtlas.

“None of us are surprised,” Dennis Holladay said.

“He’s been doing remarkably well,” said granddaughter Janelle Bowman.

Although both Lois and Preston Holladay ate the same Kansas farm diet of meat, potatoes, vegetable and dessert for decades, Preston didn’t develop chronic problems with cholesterol or blood pressure like his wife did.

“Good genes,” Holladay said knowingly.

Even so, he holds the title of outliving all other known kin. Extensive genealogy searches that date to 1725 prove it.

“I’m the oldest one we could trace,” Holladay said.

But the family never could identify a connection to the famous gambler, gunfighter and dentist John Henry “Doc” Holliday, who died in 1887 of tuberculosis and is buried in Glenwood Springs.

The last name is spelled differently, but Preston Holladay’s farming roots go back to the area surrounding Dodge City, Kan., where Doc Holliday practiced dentistry and is credited with saving the life of his friend, Wyatt Earp.

Even without a definitive answer of a link to that famous 1800s legend, Holladay is a beloved patriarch who has gained fame in his own right.

The family has a distinction that many others do not, said his granddaughter, Jeanne Simmerman.

“We have a very pioneering history, and they truly understood the importance of heritage,” she said of her grandparents. “They brought it into the culture of our family.”

Family members have sought out tombstones of early ancestors in western Kansas and been successful.

“We realize how significant it is to our future to see where we’ve been in the past, to know of the sacrifices that were made,” Dennis Holladay said. “Many were poor dirt farmers, and yet they survived and did well.”

After farming for 13 years as a married couple in Kansas, Preston and Lois Holladay moved to Colorado in 1953 and settled in Manitou Springs, where they raised their sons, owned a carpet-cleaning company and then helped launch a restoration business.

Their lineage includes four grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and, seven weeks ago, great-great-grandchild Rosemary Bateman arrived, heralding the fifth generation.

Preston Holladay also is a proud fan of the Denver Broncos, the Colorado Rockies and the Denver Nuggets, said family members, who are scattered from Black Forest to Divide and elsewhere.

He has a copy of every Louis L’Amour book ever written and can’t get enough of Western movies, country music and train lore.

The only piece of 21st century technology he can’t live without is a fish finder on the boat he sits in while trolling on a lake, granddaughter Jeanne Simmerman said.

“He’s never met a stranger,” she said. “He’s humble, and he loves big family gatherings. It’s nice that we all like each other. We have a cohesion.”