A Learning Experience

It’s a time, then, for them to, in a manner of speaking, recharge their batteries.

 

So how did Upper School Latin teacher Tyler Boyd recharge his?

 

He landed a job on Collegiate’s grounds crew knocking down 40-hour weeks, mostly outside, even on the most oppressive days. There was a method in his madness, though. As has been the story of his life, he, the holder of four graduate degrees, simply wanted to learn. Man, did he ever!

 

“In March, I saw a posting on the school website for a part-time groundskeeper for the summer,” he said. “I wrote [HR specialist] Elizabeth Fagan and asked if I could apply. I said I was interested in seeing a totally different aspect of Collegiate. She said, ‘Go for it.’”

 

Grounds manager Jeremy Clark interviewed him and hired him.

 

Boyd spent the bulk of his summer working directly with grounds crew colleagues Robbie Tellier, Andrew Stanley, Rod Cook, Bryan Voltz, Jesse Garrant, and A.J. Johnson.

 

“Basically, what I did was help out as well as I could because I’m totally unskilled,” Boyd said, making me smile, as he often does, with his self-deprecating humor. “I’m also slow, but, by golly, I kept playing along and, as Robbie said, ‘You know, if you end up just picking up some sticks, you’ve helped.’”

 

Boyd did more than pick up sticks, of course.

 

“I had to learn everything,” he said. “I learned a lot about all the steps of preparing and seeding and maintaining the fields. I learned about the equipment they use on the fields. I learned about irrigation. I learned about plants. Even weeding. There’s a lot of weeding that needs to be done. It beautifies the campus. Large scale jobs on big fields at Robins or smaller jobs like just edging sidewalks all add up. Ultimately, I was blown away by how much the staff can accomplish on a daily basis with so few people.”

 

Collegiate’s North Mooreland Road campus covers 55 acres. The Robins Campus spans 180, but “only” 60 of them have been developed and require regular maintenance.

 

“The hardest thing I’ve physically ever done in my life was to fertilize the Charlie Blair Soccer Field,” Boyd said. “Jeremy took me out there and showed me how to use the spreader. Then we put literally 60 pounds of fertilizer in it. The trick is to keep a very good pace and spread it evenly because if you put too much or too little on the field, you’ll mess it up. So…fast pace, level spreader, 60 pounds of fertilizer, and a huge field under a very hot sun in July lead to exertion. And they do this for every single field.”

 

There’s more, of course.

 

“The professionalism I saw was mind blowing,” Boyd continued. “I’ve always had a professional respect for what they [the members of the physical plant staff] do. Now I have a practical respect. That’s why I wanted to do this. I’ve been here for almost 19 years. I’ve been impressed with the beauty of the campus at all times, but I thought, Wouldn’t it be nice to understand, really, what they’re doing? I’ll never, ever look at a natural grass field the same way again. The beauty is hidden in plain sight. You see the staff working around campus, but you don’t always compute how valuable their contributions are.”

 

Boyd also served as house manager in the Hershey Center on five weekends for groups that rented the facility. Just as he witnessed first-hand professional excellence in his work with the physical plant staff, likewise he observed it in the Oates Theater staff.

 

“Ellie Wilder, Andy Santalla, Gabe Yelangian, and Shannon Cassano are supremely talented,” Boyd said. “They make everything look so effortless. The people who rent our facilities are so impressed with all they do. They love our facilities/tech staff. Whenever you’re looking at the fields or taking in a performance or sitting in the comfort of the buildings, remember that the grounds staff and facilities staff work hard and respond very quickly to needs. How lucky we are to have full-time staff in the theater and on grounds and in the facilities. We are rich beyond computation.”

 

Will he reprise his summer gig in 2025?

 

“I’d like to,” he said. “I enjoyed the staff. I enjoyed being outside. I enjoyed seeing a totally different aspect of the school. It’s a wonder to see first-hand all that goes into making these two campuses so beautiful and functioning. There’s so much pride in workmanship, so much exactitude. The staff is entrusted to get the job done. They get it done invariably, and very, very, very well.”

~Weldon Bradshaw