Cooner cleans her last school
SALEM – Shirley Cooner emptied her last school trash can last week.
The building manager at West Salem Elementary School is retiring after 23 years of cleaning up Salem schools. “I started in July 1977 at Salem High School, before the school actually opened,” recalled Cooner, who has worked with five principals:
Longtime Salem Schools' building manager Shirley Cooner gets a hug from West Salem Elementary kindergartners on their last day.
They were Bayse Wilson at SHS, Principal Lipscomb, current principal John Hall, and after she moved over to West Salem in May 2000, John Millard and after his retirement two years ago, Trula Byington.
“She does so much for our school and totally cares for the children,” said Byington. “Shirley works from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., but the other night after our fifth-grade graduation, she came back at 8 p.m. to help clean up so the night people wouldn’t have so much to do.”
Sitting down for a moment at one of the tables in the school’s cafeteria on the last day of school June 14, Cooner got hugs from a group of kindergarten children passing by.
Then Cafeteria Manager Sherry Maxwell and her “lunch ladies” stopped by with a card for her, and a gift certificate inside.
Instructional aide Kathy Davis gave her a hug and added, “Shirley has the most positive attitude. She always has a smile about anything we asked her to do.”
Cooner looked over the red-and-white plaid tablecloths dressed up with flowers for the staff luncheon and said, “What I’ll miss is all the kids. You really get kinda close to some of them,” she added.
“I think I’ll really miss the whole thing when school starts back next year,” she added.
And she’ll miss the school staff. “The Salem Schools have been real good to me,” she said.
Like the custodial staff at other schools, Cooner worked 12 months a year. Summertime is when the hardest work is done, she said.
“We strip the floors, shampoo carpets. Last summer, 15 classrooms were remodeled. It was a mess. Maybe this summer, it won’t be as big a mess – but I won’t be here,” she added.
Cooner officially retires July 1, but her last day at West Salem was June 16. West Salem custodians She works with Justin Dooley, Amy Riggs and Susie Snavely, who are carrying on after she leaves. One of her staff is going on to Andrew Lewis Middle School to work.
And as for Cooner’s future plans? She and her husband, Butch, of 14 years want to do some traveling, particularly by train, she said, and to car races Butch likes, and the beach at Nags Head.
They live in Lafayette with their pet cats and dogs Sampson and Hitch.
She has family in the area. Her 80-year-old mother, Esther Huffman, lives in the Cave Spring area. Brothers Bobby Huffman and Larry Huffman are near Rocky Mount. Their sisters, Linda Wainwright and Betty Guthrie, live in Goodview and Boones Mill, respectively.
Cooner also plans to do some work to the house where she and Butch live. “It’s an old house,” she said. “We’re trying to fix it up.”
