Rhonda Priest works as the head custodian of Spring Grove Area High School. The backbone of the school, a true Spring Grove rocket, celebrated her birthday on January 27th. She just turned 57. 

She comes in before the sun is up, and stays until the job is done, which sometimes gets late – on musical weekend this meant 1:30am. Her hours vary in general, but are usually 6:30 am to 3 pm. When there is snow, you’ll see her roaming the halls even earlier, and salting the walkways by hand to ensure her students’ safety. She has been working as a custodian for almost 14 years, a custodian at Spring Grove high school for about four years, and a head custodian for about four years at the middle school and five years at the high school

This woman loves her school, the staff, the students, and the environment she works around. The love that she deserves is out of this world, and the love that she gives to each and every person she meets is too.

After being interviewed, Ms. Rhonda has plenty to say about her experiences and time at Spring Grove. 

What inspires you to keep doing this job? 

“The staff and the students. Trying to be everything to everyone, I think that’s my job making sure everybody has everything that they need”.

 “The kids when they come up to me in the hallway and go “Hi Ms. Rhonda” You know, I just love that. I love being a part of that, I love being a part of the high school”.

What’s one thing that you would like to say to the students and staff that you want them to know?

“I think just that, I would hope that they would understand that we work very hard to make you all proud of this building. To get you in and out safely during the weather, I guess just that we work really hard to give you whatever you need, anything you need, any of your events that you need, you know the setting up and tearing down of it, that’s our job, that’s what we do”.

 “It becomes who we are, it’s that we love working at the high school…These are the best years of your life, your high school years are going to be the best years, you’re going to look back at them for the rest of your life… and to be a little bit apart of that, that’s amazing for us. It’s amazing for me”.

“And I’m proud to be here”.