Mo. School Names Building After Its Heart & Soul – The Janitor
One of the ways to solidify a legacy in the United States is to have something named after you. Many times getting something named after you requires you to create it, whether that’s a new invention, a business, or a child. Become big enough and people will want to attach your name to something that they may be involved with like a highway or a bridge. Perhaps you are a notable member of a group that has achieved lofty success and your association with the group and there is a desire to celebrate that. You could have a building, or maybe an athletic field named after you.
Swedeborg, Missouri just cut against the grain and historical norm by naming a school building after someone who has definitely been involved with the day to day operations and made an impact on faculty, students and other staff for decades. The custodian.
64 year old Claudine Wilson has worked at the school for more than thirty years. She also does more than just janitorial duties. Claudine drives the school bus. She helps serve on lunch duty. She helps with the landscaping on campus and is there to welcome the kids to school each morning.
People who are that involved on such a consistent basis for decades get referred to as an “institution”. Claudine is such an institution in Swedeborg that the School Board President says if the kids get sick at school they’ll go to Claudine before seeing the nurse. If a kid is having a bad day, they go talk to Claudine.
She is the heart and soul of the school. It’s because of that reality that naming the building after her makes sense.
Claudine has never been the type person to elevate herself. She is about serving, humbly. She doesn’t think that she deserves to have her name on a building.
The legacy thing, historically is something that people will begin focusing on once they can see an end of their career and influence in coming. They want to be remembered beyond their career and life.
Claudine Wilson is content just knowing that her legacy is carried forward with each student that she poured into each day. Year after year, decade after decade. Her example is her legacy.
Years from now when people ask why a school building is named after Claudine, her heart for the kids and the school will be retold and inspire. She is precisely the highly successful person who’s name is immediately associated with a place. That place is now named after her.
KEEP READING: See 25 natural ways to boost your immune system
LOOK: Classic Halloween costumes from 1865 to today
Gallery Credit: Stacker