Custodian surprised by students and staff during last day of work

When West­wood Ele­men­tary School cus­to­dian Gordy Myers arrived at work on Tues­day, he was sur­prised the school was hav­ing a West­ern Day and failed to men­tion it to him.

How­ever, it was all planned as a sur­prise to say good-bye to the man that was retir­ing after a 17-year career.

Myers arrived for his night shift on Tues­day, and was told by West­wood prin­ci­pal Natalie Fior that a few stu­dents wanted to say good-bye to him.

When Myers stepped into the hall­way, he was greeted by the entire stu­dent body and staff.

Myers walked through the hall­way, heard stu­dents clap­ping and yelling his name, and received hugs and gifts from stu­dents and staff.

“I was totally sur­prised,” Myers said. “It’s kind of a scary deal for an old guy.”

Myers started work­ing for the dis­trict in 1995 as a cus­to­dian at McCormick Mid­dle School. From there, he went to Welling­ton High School, and has spent the past 10 years at West­wood Ele­men­trary School.

Myers said he took the job with the school dis­trict because of the ben­e­fits. A dairy farmer for 30 years, he said he had no insur­ance, so fig­ured he would retire and work for the schools.

What he didn’t expect, was he would enjoy the job so much.

“All three build­ings have been amaz­ing,” he said. “I’ve made so many good friends here.”

He said he enjoyed help­ing teach­ers, and see­ing how much a sim­ple chore made their day.

“I’ve touched lives here just by chang­ing a pen­cil sharp­ener or repair­ing things,” he said. “It means a lot to the teachers.”

He said one of the most enjoy­able things about work­ing in the schools for nearly two decades, has been see­ing stu­dents become teachers.

“You see them go through the school dis­trict and come back to work for the dis­trict,” he said. “I always tell them that no mat­ter how old they get, they will still be a kid to me.”

Myers said he’s ready for retire­ment, but plans to keep busy.

He said he’s hop­ing to get a young horse to break.

“That’s my ball game,” he said. “There prob­a­bly isn’t a horse per­son in the coun­try that doesn’t know me.”

No mat­ter what he’s doing, Myers said he’ll always remem­ber his time in the school district.

“It’s been a long ride, but a good ride,” he said.

Posted by Terra Carlson on Feb 2 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.