By COLIN POWELL
For the past 35 years, Pat Henry has seen 14 superintendents come and go in Union 93. After graduating from George Stevens Academy in June 1974, she applied for a secretarial job and found herself working alone with a newly hired superintendent and without an office. Now, as executive secretary to the superintendent, she makes sure school employees are paid and budgets get to town meeting on time. On February 26, Henry will be working her last day, after announcing her retirement earlier this month.
Henry recently said that just before she was hired, the previous superintendent, who had been working out of his home in Castine with his wife as secretary, was leaving. She worked with a brand new superintendent for a year out of the business office at GSA before a space was renovated in the Blue Hill Town Hall. “I knew I wanted to do secretarial work,” said Henry, noting that back when she graduated from high school, many people tended to just look for work.
Henry’s first three years were just her and the superintendent. Despite lower enrollments now, she said there are more teachers and programs, resulting in higher budgets and more oversight needed. She noted that now there are more state and federal grants, and special education was only recently introduced. “They’re like puzzle pieces, you get one in and three fall out,” said Henry.
Despite the hard work keeping up with the needs of four schools and municipal, state and federal governments, Henry says she has loved her time at the office. Having seen every position at the office, except the superintendent, created, she said a lot of her longevity is based on her ability to learn to work with different people, and to focus on what she needs to do. “I just do my job,” said Henry. She also takes her job as an employee of the public seriously. “Everyone who calls or walks in that door, I consider to be paying part of my salary.”
While the timing of Henry’s departure has something to do with getting out to see her son play college baseball, she emphasized that she could not have been happier in her job. The flexibility it offered her in the past was tremendous. But for 35 years, she’s never had three months off at a time. She’s excited to follow her son at the University of Southern Maine, as he goes through spring training and plays his last season there. She sees this move as shifting her priorities from work to family.
As Henry moves on, she admits that her observations of superintendents—when one goes out, school boards bring in a new one with new objectives—applies to her position as well. “The office needs someone with different skills now,” she said, of the union’s transition to new accounting software.
Talking about what has changed over the years, Henry noted that when she first started, most schools had only music as an extracurricular activity. She has watched physical education, art, and numerous other programs added, making for more work at the central office, processing faculty and administration payrolls and government reports. In fact, another new feature when she was hired in 1974, was union contracts. “My first job here was typing up a contract. I had no idea what any of the words meant, but I did it,” Henry said.
Then there was the first budget season. After six months in the office, December rolled around and the superintendent asked for the books, she recalled. “What books?” was her answer. Needless to say, she figured out what he was asking for—call it “on-the-job training.”
There will be a public party for Henry to celebrate her retirement on Sunday, February 7, from 2 to 5 p.m. at Barncastle Restaurant on South Street. There will be a brief presentation at 3 p.m., to which everyone is welcome to contribute.
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