Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Tom Kammerzell is retiring after 24.66 years as a custodian at Jennings Elementary. It was easy because his start date was easy to remember, the day after Christmas, 1986.
He began at Jennings as an assistant, and five years later, after the previous head of custodial maintenance was injured in a ladder fall, he was named custodian.
His years in the elementary and middle school’s halls included two school remodeling projects with the last one adding the junior high addition and the second gym.
He figures the total of eight graders departing Jennings over those years was over 1,200.
Kammerzell always worked a split shift, 4:30 to 8:30 a.m and 1:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
There weren’t many people around at 4:30 in the morning, except the one morning early in his career. Kammerzell flipped on a light in a hall and saw a man standing at the end of it. He quickly realized it was a would-be burglar, and in his youthful discretion, Kammerzell chased him. He caught him a block from school.
Over the years, other uninvited visitors were found on the premises.
“There was a number of animals to be removed,” Kammerzell said. “Snakes, bats, mice, gerbils, a muskrat, birds, a rottweiler dog.”
Kammerzell and wife Cheryl also raise Scottish Highland cattle on their farm south of Colfax. They have three grown children.
Kammerzell, a candidate for port commissioner, resigned a day before the primary election. If he doesn’t win, he has alternate retirement plans.
“I’ll go on to enjoying our farm,” he said. “I’ve got a long list, a very long list of things for the next year.”
His final task at Jennings Elementary was refinishing the gym floor, a task he did every summer for the past 25 years.
This year’s job turned up no flaws, and “a teaspoon of product left,” he said. “You leave on a good note.”
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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