Jared Grgurich - 12
10/02/2018
At 6 A.M. on Monday, September 24, janitor Jerry Sayre and a team of other custodians in the Kirksville school district were called to the Spainhower Field for what Sayre called an “all-hands-on-deck emergency”. The Saturday before, a group of students broke into the Spainhower Field press box, graffitied the tiger statue, multiple pillars and senior portraits. They then broke into the school and stole items.
Custodians Jerry Sayre, Jerry Sizemore, Deljean Burgin, and Danny Williams began the cleaning process at about 6:30 and finished around 9:00 in this process they power washed off all paint. The cleaning wasn’t limited to the field-- there were other graffitied spots on the high school and tech center that had to be scrubbed because the power washer couldn’t reach them.
Also on the day of cleaning, two of the workers had to go through each the press box rooms to check for damages. Further complications include the noticeable costs of replacing stolen items and repairing tampered electronic systems in the press box.
The vandalism affected the cleaners most by turning their eight-and-a-half-hour day into an 11-hour day. However, extended work days are not something new for them. Senior pranks and extra messy football games often set back their schedules.
Many of the maintenance workers involved in cleaning the graffiti are the same ones who clean our schools everyday. They clean the classrooms so we have a nice, functioning place to learn, they clean the bathrooms so they aren’t full of chewing tobacco, and they clean our football field after games.
Sayre encourages students to think about what they’re doing before they do it. Putting dry ice in the toilet may seem funny to us, but it’s most definitely not funny for the guys who have to scoop it out. In vandalism cases similar to this one, it is not just a pain for the workers to clean, but could also lead to the offenders being criminally charged if the damage is severe enough.