Year One at BYU

1^st Year at BYU

Well it has been a fast first year at BYU in the Special Events Custodial Department.

I started with BYU on July 1^st 2013. I worked the 1^st and 2^nd and then spent the 3^rd at SupraNaturals for my last day of employment there. The on the 4^th I worked the Stadium of Fire and from then on at BYU.

I have now worked all but one event and that was the Ball Room Dance event that I didn’t work since we took vacation and went to Washington state to see Loren’s family.

So now that I have worked all football games, all basketball (men and women) games, Christmas Around The World, Tuesday devotionals, MTC Devotionals, dance competitions, men’s meals for basketball , Women’s Conference, Education Week, summer and winter graduations, and high school graduations and a number of other things I can tell a few of my first year highlights.

The first event was when Mike and I were called out to cleanup some blood. I remember Mike saying as we left the office that I”I hope it isn’t too big.”  When we got there it was quite large as it had been caused by a man falling on his head. We later learned that he had a heart attack and had actually died before he even hit the cement. He was an avid fan and had even played football for BYU many years earlier. He loved the game and his wife reported that of any place he could die that one was very appropriate. Our problem was also that the medics had also been walking around trying to revive him and had spread the blood for a lot larger area than originally spilled.

Later in that same game another fan had a bloody nose and I cleaned it up while having my students stand in the way to keep people from walking all through it. They had the hardest job as people don’t think when they are needing to go to the restroom, they just expect everyone to move out of their way before they think about trying to realize the area is blocked on purpose.

While preparing for the Sept 27^th game at the stadium I got the call with a picture of Brittany and Jeff’s new baby girl. Kate was born in the late afternoon and since Mike Averett, my boss, and Jeff’s father doesn’t carry a cell phone I was able to go show him the picture of our new granddaughter too. Kate is so special and we get to quite often get comments of surprise when we explain that she is our granddaughter, the granddaughter to both of us.

One game, our first of the season at home against Texas , there was a storm that hit with more furry than ever recorded at the BYU stadium. It rained so hard for several minutes, almost 30 as I remember. Long enough that Dale and I had to go to the Marriott Center and check to see if water had gotten into the 1^st level through the west ramp. It was OK but we got soaked and I had too step into knee high water to move a police barricade set to keep people out of one of the parking lots through which we had to travel to get to the MC. There were soaked people everywhere.

It has been fun working the games however since I have met several people during each event that I have known through the years and not seen for many of those years. I have some very special friends and am so thankful for them. I have gotten to know most of the athletes on the men’s and women’s basketball teams as well as all of the coaches. And I even took a group of priests and teachers through on a tour only later to find out that the leader of the group, their Bishop, was the Vice President, Jon Lewis, of the university over the athletic programs.

I witnessed the changing of the University President this year and was interested to find out that I had not only photographed the past President, Cecil O Samuleson, but also the new President Kevin J Worthen when we did the Silver Beaver pictures for the Utah National Parks Council of the Boy Scouts of America last summer. It was fun to be able to talk to both of them several times throughout the year. I got to know Sister Samuelson quite well as I saw her several more times than he during the year at various events.

The dance performances were always fun especially to see how the young men who worked for me reacted to the dancers. They couldn’t get them and the tons of hairspray out of the MC soon enough. A few of the girls caught their attention a couple of times but not for long due to the hairspray and layer upon layer of make-up.

Then there was Women’s Conference and all but two of the restrooms on the concourse were changed over to womens restrooms only. Apparently in the past the signs “Men only” hasn’t even stopped the women from going into the men’s restroom only even when men were in there. They needed to go and didn’t care if men were there or not. Well that happened to me once this year during a dance event when I had to go into the women’s restroom on the first floor as we had no female students working before the event at that time. There were some women in the room next to it playing with their hair and said it was clear but as I was in the middle of changing a roll of paper towels a women came in and couldn’t wait, luckily there were walls around the stall. There were no other instances of which I was aware this year.

I was surprised once late in the evening before Christmas as I walked into the women’s basketball locker room to shut off the lights. AS I shouted “Custodial, anyone in here I heard a young women’s voice tell me to come on in. It was Lexi Easton, the one player from Springville. She was sitting in one of the plush recliners in their locker room studying. She said that was the quietest place on campus to study for finals. I talked to her for awhile about Springville High School. We became friends and later after the final game I met her parents as they were down on the basketball floor after the last home game. She has a sister also possibly coming to BYU in a couple of years and Coach Judkins was making sure she was very welcome. Lexi is one of the best players on his team this year and guessed her sister might also be working hard to be as good as Lexi.  Later in the year I also met a couple other girls from the team the same way as they were still in the locker room late at night studying. I met two of the boys in similar situations in their locker room and it has been fun to get to know them a little better as students working hard at the sport that they love to play. Both of them were very embarrassed by the mess left on the floor that I would begin to pick up and place into the garbage cans. Both of them helped clean up the tape that had been thrown toward the waste baskets and missed then left for us to pick up. Later I met their parents as well and expressed my thanks to them for raising some boys that would stop and help me even though it was not something they had to do.

There were also times when students would camp for two or three days prior to a basketball game and then sneak into the MC on the second floor by the ticket office to go to the restrooms and then block a door on the third level so they could get in easier since the restrooms are all on that floor. It wasn’t until the last game and the last couple of hours that I suddenly realized I could just lock all of the restrooms so even if they did get in the couldn’t use them. One student even waited in a restroom until he thought we were gone before going out to block open the door for the night. I caught him and escorted him out before locking all of the doors even on the second level.

One night after the last of four high school graduations that day I had two students and myself locking up the 1^st level. The boys had seen a girl and boy in the arena on the floor and unbeknown to them I had also gone down to the first floor to help lock up since it was well after 10 pm. I was on the east side and the boys on the west. Well I came down from locking the doors on the east second level and walked through the door just as the boy and girl raced around the corner. I asked if they were trying to find their way out assuming that they had just not left from graduation yet. Well I turned them around and started to walk back the way they had come and as we went around the corner here came my two students. Well the surprise on their faces was almost as good as the boy and girl’s faces. They were upset that I had found them first as they were excited for the chase. I left them to finish locking up as I escorted the two youth up the elevator and outside. The young lady asked me as we were going up the elevator if there had been graduations in there that day and it suddenly dawned on my brain that they were from an “Especially for Youth” group. EFY had just had their first session that week and the two of them were obviously playing hooky to make out in the MC. I told the MC counselors the next day and they were all saying it wasn’t from my group since they were supposed to keep track of them.

This year at the Stadium of Fire I worked two 12 hour days prior to the event and then 19 the day of on July 4^th. On the 3^rd of July after the dress rehearsal was over I was on the stage talking to the stage director and a micro burst hit. We could hear what sounded like fireworks just before it hit and wondered who was setting them off and then one of the other stage hands said it was a micro burst, The man I was with yelled at the three or four there to run. I thought he was over reacting a bit until one of the canopy’s was lifted up and a major support on the stage fell over. I ran with him at that point and he told me after we got under the stadium that people are often hurt by those things.

During the day of the 4th not a lot of significant things happened but there were several during the event after all of the people arrived.

Several toilets and one urinal wouldn’t stop flushing so I worked with the plumbers to get them repaired. One sink had the drainpipe knocked loose so that it was spilling onto the floor and we had to have the girls lock us in so that other women could not come in while we were working on it.

We had a call that someone had lost a child so I went over, since it was in my area, and stood with the mother and grandmother to keep them calm while the father went to the police area to report it. It took almost 15 minutes before the mother told me she had just gotten a call and the 5 year old was at the First Aid area with the police and her husband. She had red eyes and was so relieved that the child was found. Later I wished I had told her to just give the child a big hug when she got back because she had probably already been told not to leave the family but I am sure she didn’t mean to wander off and scolding her would only make matters worse. I didn’t see them again to see how they had reacted however.

Then I had a code red in one of the men’s restrooms and had to clean up after a young man with a bloody nose had dripped blood in several places (The supervisors are the only ones allowed to clean up blood due to blood born pathogens and we are the only ones specifically trained to control it.) I knew something was wrong since I had seen an EMT with the young man helping him at the sink but didn’t see the blood until after they had left. Again men and boys just couldn’t get to the bathroom fast enough and I had fun keeping them out of the blood until the cleanup kit was able to be brought to me from the office.

Then as I was leaving that situation I saw a women being helped to the other restroom and it looked as though she were sick. I informed the EMT at portal I and then kept an eye out for her to come from the restroom since they seemed more interested in the performer, Carrie Underwood, who was on stage at that time. The lady had gotten something from a glowstick in her eyes. I soon saw her come from the restroom and after finding out what had happened helped her get to the EMT’s so that they could take her to the first aid station to flush out the foreign material in her eyes. They attended to her that time without question since they knew I was right about her needing attention.

Well there are many things that have happened during the year that have been fun, even the “Kent Appreciation Day” that the night regulars gave to me just before the end of the school year.  It was fun to also have one of the pool students that came there remind me so much of Kasia that I was continually amazed by it all year long. She had the silent expressions that Kasia has and the somewhat shy personality that Kasia also has. It was neat to see her go through the preparations for her mission and then to find she was going to the Los Angeles Temple Visitors Center speaking Spanish. As I had talked with her earlier she had expressed the desire to go foreign and even though she was called to Los Angeles she was sent to Mexico to the MTC to learn Spanish. Her older sister also worked for us and it was always a treat to work with them through the year. The students are all really special but the ones I came to know best were Michael Bischoff, Joe Lyon, Mary Waldron, Andrew Shromberg , Shannon Otterson and Beth Bergeson. They were my night regulars and were there till I went home each night.   I am looking forward to working with four of the six next year since they will be returning as my night regulars.  Mike is graduating and Beth is currently serving an LDS Mission. It was a couple of days after I met Joe that I finally had the courage to ask if his brother was Jesse. Jesse was in the Bishopric as second counselor to Bishop Lundberg while I was 1^st counselor. Joe said he was and quickly added a few days later that he suddenly remembered Marie and I having taken his family’s pictures when Jesse blessed their first son. He said he remembered Marie playing with the younger children to get them to smile.

It has been a great first year and to answer the question that I have been asked the most during this year “Do I still like it at BYU?” I have to answer I sure do. I no longer hear swearing more than regular English, and I rarely smell cigarette smoke, and I work in an air conditioned environment most of the time that isn’t at 90 degrees while standing all day. I enjoyed my time at SupraNaturals but must admit that this is the environment I love to work in the most. I have enjoyed even seeing students from my days in the hIgh Council at BYU still attending school come through the Marriott Center. I have had fun making friends with some of the students working as ushers at the events. I was so excited to have Kate that I showed one young lady at the stroller checkin at the stadium her picture the day Kate was born. I then had to be sure I had updated pictures to show her at the rest of the games and even got to introduce her to Kate at one of the basketball games. She loved children and instantly fell in love with Kate. 

I also got to see Preston Hadley who had played football at BYU the year before I came and whom I had photographed several times while he was growing up as we did their family pictures several times. The last time I saw him he actually spotted me first and came over to shake hands and get a hug. Sister Hadley is Colette Perry's (mom's best friend from Snow College) sister and that was how we started to take their family pictures. 

I should also mention Kyle Collinsworth who plays basketball that I have also gotten to know better since he has grown up. We did their family pictures as well when he was a lot younger and I served with his father on the Mapleton Stake High Council. He has always treated me with respect when we pass in the hallway or ride in the elevator together.