by Ben Severance

As bedside alarms ring early on weekday mornings, the young men in Keen Hall roll out of bed. Some are groggy and not so eager to dash out the door. But Susan Wilkerson is already up waiting for them.

Wilkerson, a building service attendant, starts her workday at 7 a.m. with a big smile and a loud hello for everyone she meets.

Wilkerson has been working at Western for the past three years and says she loves her job because of all the students she gets to meet.

“Sometimes I think they’re intimidated by me,” Wilkerson said. “But when they come out in the mornings they’re waving and hollering at me, saying ‘good morning.’”
A self-proclaimed jabber box, Wilkerson often chats with resident assistants, students and coworkers when she’s not busy maintaining the building.

But Wilkerson hasn’t always been the outgoing character the men in Keen have grown to appreciate.

“I was so shy, it was unreal,” Wilkerson said. “I couldn’t talk in public. It was too scary.”

It wasn’t until Wilkerson attended Western as a teen and took a public speaking class that she gained more confidence.

After receiving an assignment to write a speech on any topic, Wilkerson, an avid hunter, decided to explain how to reload shotgun cartridges.

She got a B and she thinks it would have been an A, but in her excitement, she spoke two minutes more than the time limit.

“That’s when I realized that it didn’t really matter what people thought about me as long as I was having fun.”

Now, she walks down the halls with authority, her curly, blonde hair in a ponytail. A black pouch draped with tools and knick-knacks hangs from Wilkerson’s small waist, scrunching her red uniform shirt.

Every day, residents hear Wilkerson’s wild laughter or the jangle of keys from every hallway in Keen.

Wilkerson, originally from Louisville, moved to Bowling Green with her family when she was young and considers it her hometown. She studied distributive management and marketing at Western for three and half years before leaving.

“It turned out not to be for me,” she said. “So I opted for the next best thing — being a mother.”

Wilkerson has two children, a daughter, 24, who lives in Louisville and a son, 14, who is a freshman at Bowling Green High School.

“As parents there’s no manual,” she said. “But apparently I didn’t do too bad a job because she still calls me and says ‘I love you.’”

Wilkerson started working at Western part-time as a BSA in August 2007. She worked odd jobs to help pay the bills until the University offered her a full-time position.

“In October, I got full-time and I was ecstatic.”

After starting in the co-ed Pearce-Ford Tower, then moving Bemis Lawrence Hall, an all-female dorm, Wilkerson now hopes to work in Keen permanently.

“I would like to work here long enough to retire. That would be awesome,” Wilkerson said. “Just think of all the kids that I could talk to.”

photo by Ben Severance