Friday Feature • Homecoming and Open House

Friday, October 20, 2023

We welcome thousands of guests for Open House and Homecoming weekends. Thanks to all for making the campus so beautiful.

Today in my Friday Feature I have a picture here of a completed batting cage. You may ask yourself why is there a picture without anybody in it as part of your Friday Feature? That is because I was trying to recognize the good work the grounds and maintenance crews were doing in getting us set up for Homecoming and Open House weekends, but they dodged the picture. That is the story of these good people, doing amazing work behind the scenes and being nothing but humble about it. The grounds, maintenance, and custodial groups are the topic of my Friday Feature.

Recently, I had the pleasure of spending the morning with Nicole Graves, who as many of you know, is part of our custodial team. I wanted to get a feel for a day in the life of our cleaning staff. She was easy on me, but we spent the morning cleaning toilets, bathrooms, and other spaces within Orvis. It was hard work, but so very gratifying to see the outcome at the end, which is typically all we ever see. And the attention to detail! Just the other day I was leaving work to see Mike Evans, who does great work in my building, on a 20-foot ladder dusting the light in the foyer!

The same is true for our maintenance crews, who spend endless hours fixing leaky pipes, broken doors, and any number of items that need repair and fixing. I popped into the facilities building to say hello and got a peak at the system they use to track jobs and progress. I was very impressed with the organization of the system. The number of jobs seemed endless, but they were approaching it in good spirits. Like us all, small steps lead to great progress.

And speaking of great progress, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the nice touches around campus of our haybales, pumpkins, and flowers. Additional work by our grounds crews to create that special touch, look, and feel on campus as we welcome thousands of guests for our Homecoming and Open House weekends. Yes, construction and rain dampened Homecoming just a bit, but it certainly didn’t wash away the extra touches our grounds crew did to make guests feel welcome.

To thank all our facilities staff for the excellent work they are doing, my wife baked some fall goodies for the entire crew this week. You can help when you see them by thanking them as well. Whether it is one of our custodial staff who is cleaning your building, one of our maintenance crews fixing something, or our grounds crew out and about, stop and say hello and thank them for their tremendous effort!