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So how long is 11,915,000 minutes? It’s just shy of 23 years, or equivalent to Susan Wendleton’s illustrious career at Carthage Water & Electric Plant.
It was also the title of an original song led by Kelli Nugent and Kyle Fewin at Susan Wendleton’s retirement ceremony, held in the CW&EP Community room on Friday, Nov. 9.
Close to 200 people filled the CW&EP Community Room to honor the utility’s retiring executive secretary and administrative assistant to three bosses.
When current General Manager Chuck Bryant asked employees to raise their hand if Wendleton led them through their new employee orientation when they started, nearly all of the employees did.
“That’s pretty significant,” Bryant said. “As you go through a career like that, you think about the impact that one person can have on all of those employees, and it’s very significant. Not only did Susan, in her position, take notes, file paperwork and type minutes and do shorthand, which I think the only two people who can do shorthand maybe are in this room right now, but Susan also dealt with a myriad of injuries to employees, some very unfortunate events that would happen here at work, financial problems that an employee may have, a lot of personal problems came to Susan, and she helped them work through those kind of situations.”
On the shoulders of legends
Bryant said Wendleton will join a list of leaders at CW&EP that have shaped the operations the utility for years beyond their retirement.
“You have prepared the people who will try to take your place to do all the things, and you have certainly left this company better off than when you found it,” Bryant said. “Some of you who come to our meetings know we talk a lot about what we do as a utility, standing on the shoulders of people like John Garrett, Bob Williams, Marge Housh (Rogler), Tom Pittman. We stand on their shoulders with what we do in our community. Susan now gets to be one of those we get to stand on and be proud of the work she put forward and that we can move on and accomplish more in our community, and for that we’re eternally grateful.”
Marge House Rogler, who hired Wendleton as a cashier in 1996, talked about that day.
“When Susan came and applied for a job, she said a while ago, she was a country girl who had been driving a truck, and that’s what she looked like,” Rogler said to a room full of laughter. “Now take a look at this girl, Carthage Water & Electric’s years have done good things for her. She was a super employee, I had a time at the end of the years I was here when my husband was ill, and I was gone a lot and we survived because of Susan. Thank you and I love you and enjoy your next life.”
Wendleton talked about Rogler hiring her.
“Most of you know that the 17 years before I came to work here, I was a farmer and a truck driver, but I was at a point in my life where I was going to have to go get a job,” Wendleton said. “I’m thinking who would hire me, and that is when a position came available at Carthage Water & Electric. I had no idea there would be 100-plus applicants, but I thought it would give me a chance to practice interviewing. It happened to be Marge Housh (Rogler), and she hired me — I wouldn’t have hired me, I would not have taken a chance on me, but she did. I feel like God was there, he knows what’s in our tomorrows, he knows what our needs are even when we don’t.”
Wendleton said three months after Rogler hired her, she asked if Wendleton would take an executive position.
“I said Marge, I feel like I would need to promise you I’d be here two years to make it worth your while to train me and I just don’t see myself still being here in two years,” Wendleton said. “Marge said you take the job and if you need to leave, you just leave. I am very, very grateful that she offered me the job and that I said yes, and I got to spend nearly 23 years here.”
Columbian connection
For the past couple of years, Wendleton and a team of CW&EP employees have been volunteering at Columbian Elementary School as part of the Bright Futures Carthage program.
In honor of her service, Columbian Principal Bryan Shallenberger presented Wendleton with a portrait of her he created and spoke about what she has meant to the students at Columbian.
Shallenberger said Wendleton has served on the school’s Bright Futures Council and was at a meeting when Shallenberger brought up a problem.
He said the school had established a day for each grade level, every year, when parents, grandparents and other loved ones were invited to have lunch with their children at the school.
“Several years back, we were really happy with the program, but one of the things that kept happening was a lot of our students, their parents would work during the day and they wouldn’t be able to attend. So, we’d have boys and girls, could be kindergarten all the way up to fourth grade, coming to lunch and they see all these other parents and family members who came to eat with their kid, but no one was there to eat with them. It was kind of heart breaking, you think you’re doing a good thing, this is cool, then you do it and you’re like, oh no, what about those kids.”
Shallenberger said teachers would sit with some of those students and try to fill in, but there weren’t enough of them.
“So, we brought it up at our Bright Futures council and you could see Susan’s wheels start turning,” Shallenberger said. “So the next thing you know, little by little, the next time we have this event, more and more people from Carthage Water & Electric started coming into our Lunch with a Loved One events, and you see these big burly men coming in carrying boxes of pizza and drinks for kids, and now it’s a tradition at Columbian and the kids really do look forward to it.
“Now they go to recess with them after lunch sometimes. It’s really been amazing to see what she’s done and the energy level that she brings to any activity that she’s involved in.”
Grateful to God
Wendleton said she has appreciated the opportunities to work with the staff at Columbian school and the many boards and community groups she’s been involved with since starting at CW&EP.
“I’m grateful for the opportunities that I’ve had by being here, by serving alongside so many in the Carthage community, from Bright Futures to Soroptimists to Innovative Industries to church activities at Carthage Nazarene, to Caring Communities, various boards,” she said. “I’ve gotten to serve alongside of you and in work situations that have been a gift to me that you have allowed me to be a part of your life.”
She also spoke about the memories she’s created with the employees of CW&EP.
“I think back to the memories we have, to the ice storms where it was like there was not a stop and I would sleep on my office floor because it took too much time to get home for the few hours that you had,” she said. “I would try to convince the linemen to go home and just take a nap and they would say how can we go home when we have neighbors that are still out of electricity. And when I would cross a site where the water guys would be out in the middle of January repairing a main break in freezing temperatures and they do it because they love their neighbors and they love the people they work with.”
She also talked about the memories that were part of her job but went so much deeper than just her job.
“I’ve gotten the phone calls when their first child had been born, to hear the joy in Chuck’s voice when he left me that voice mail; when Kevin and Andy walked up the steps to the office up on the Square to show me Taylor for the first time,” Wendleton said. “We’ve had your weddings together, we’ve had your kids’ weddings together, we’ve had your moms’ and dads’ funerals, you’ve been involved in my mom and my dad’s funeral. We’ve done life together. We’ve done lots of praying around my desk for needs that have come across both yours and mine. So, I’m grateful, that’s why you feel like my kids because you kind of are, we’ve kind of done life for these 23 years. And you know my number, you can still text me those prayer requests.”
