Published: August 14, 2008 01:46 pm      

Finding a niche

WES secretaries are set for new year

Being a secretary in a small, rural school district seems to be one of those jobs that captures some people and never lets them go.

“There’s not a better place to work,” Linda Trout said, with no hesitation. “It just spoils you once you’re in the job.”

Beginning a 30th year behind an office desk at Waurika Elementary School, Jane Carter smiled contentedly and proclaimed, “I found my niche in life.”

When students begin arriving at WES on Thursday, young folks who didn’t already know the important roles played by Trout and Carter will begin to learn to depend on the two women, who’ve been fixtures in the main office for a combined 57 years.

By the end of the first class hour, Trout will know how many students showed up and who’s absent. If a student comes to the office and says they’ve forgotten a book bag or their lunch money, Carter be the one monitoring the youngster’s call home.

Skin an elbow on the playground or have a queasy stomach? If you’re a WES student, you stop in to see “Nurse Linda.” If you’re a parent calling to get a message to a child, chances are the voice on the receiver will belong to Carter, who WES Principal Cindy Walker called the “Queen of the Telephone.”

Carter and Trout are as integral to Waurika Elementary running smoothly as any of the certified and uncertified employees. Walker, in fact, called their contributions vital to her role as the school’s top administrator.

“I’ve been here 19 years and I couldn’t do my job without them,” Walker said, of the two Waurika natives, who occupy the office next to the principal’s digs. “If I hadn’t had them here when I started, I don’t know what I’d have done. They showed me everything about how things run around here.

“I’m so glad they’ve stayed as long as they have, because I couldn’t imagine training new secretaries.”

Walker drew a chuckle from both secretaries, when she added, “And the amazing thing is: We’ve been together 19 years and all of us are still just 35!”

The elementary school’s secretaries have been associated with Waurika’s school district in some fashion for most of their lives. Both went through the local school system and are Waurika High graduates. And Linda and Ed Trout and Gary and Jane Carter each had two children go through the Waurika system.

Still, back when Linda and Jane were still on the young side of 35, neither intended to become spoiled by jobs as school secretaries.

Prior to 1979, Carter put in three-year tenures doing secretarial work for the U.S. Department of Human Services, Jefferson County Hospital and First Farmer’s National Bank.

“I heard they had an opening (at the grade school) for a secretary, and [former Superintendent] Bob Brown hired me,” said Carter, who over the years decided, “It’s a neat place to work. I can’t imagine a better place. This is my family.”

Trout gained some secretarial experience working for Durrett Insurance “back before I was married,” she said. “But then I didn’t work for quite a while.”

Eventually, though, Trout began doing substitute teacher work at the school and became an aide in the kindergarten class. When Principal Terry Evans said there was a secretarial job open in the front office, Trout moved over into that position — and she’s never left.

“You learn to love being around the people who work here and to love the children. I wouldn’t want to do anything else,” Trout said.

There are job descriptions for the women’s positions, but both get involved in a myriad of tasks, depending on what needs done.

“Linda’s jobs are to take care of all daily attendance, as far as who’s absent, and to take care of the breakfast and lunch counts every day,” Walker explained. “She does all the secretarial work, as far as what the teachers need, and she does lots of typing, as well as designing programs.

“Jane keeps all our attendance records and does all of our enrollment work. She also keeps our shot records and is usually the one answering the phone.

“Both of them help out getting in touch with parents when a child needs something or is ill or something like that, and they both take care of receiving anyone who comes to the main office.”

Trout’s role as the school “nurse” has created a lingering alter image. “So many of the children are used to me being the ‘nurse,’ that when they see me downtown or somewhere, they’ll say ‘There’s the nurse from the school’,” she said.

As you would expect, during decades of being around thousands of students and situations, some slip-ups can occur.

“Once, we had a little boy who was sick, so I had him come in the office and lay down, while I called his grandpa to come get him,” Trout related. “But when ‘grandpa’ arrived, the little boy looked up and said, ‘I don’t know who that is.’

“I had called the wrong grandpa!”

One task Carter and Trout share with all the school staff is making sure students who ride school buses arrive and depart safely and in an orderly fashion. However, with dozens of children involved every day, that can get a little problematic.

“The first day of school is always traumatic for the kids, especially the ones riding the bus,” Carter said. “One year, we were all sitting around the office after the children had left on the buses, and we got a call from a woman who said her daughter didn’t get off the bus like she should have.

“We checked, and told the woman that the girl’s teacher was sure the girl had gotten on the right bus. We told the woman that even if the girl hadn’t gotten on the right bus, she did get on one of the buses and that she would be safe until the bus driver came back with her.”

Then Carter laughed and said, “The woman said, ‘Well, she’s on the right bus — she waved at me as she went past the house!

“The girl had just forgotten to get off the bus!”

Carter and the teacher made sure the youngster returned to school safely and then called the woman to say her daughter was OK.

Ah, a school secretary’s work is never done.