ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, July 11, 1996 TAG: 9607110009
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
MEMO: NOTE: Also ran in July 14, 1996 Current.
On cold winter days and nights, Rita McGuinn worked and slept at Breckinridge Middle School. She took naps on a cot there and didn't go home some nights.
As building manager for Breckinridge, McGuinn was responsible for stoking the school's three coal-fired boilers for the heating and hot water systems. During bitterly cold weather, she often would fire the boilers night and day to keep the water pipes from freezing.
"In this job, you feel like you are married to a school," she said. "You can't get away from it during the winter.
But after 12 years, the relationship has come to an end.
McGuinn has shoveled her last load of coal at Breckinridge; it will be closed for one year for extensive renovations. The school will get an automated heating system fueled with natural gas.
Of her departure, she said, "I'm sad because this is my home, but I am happy because of the boilers."
She will become building manager next year at the newly remodeled Jackson Middle School, which will also have a natural gas heating system. Jackson has been closed for a $6 million modernization during the past year.
McGuinn, the first female building manager for a Roanoke school, was single when she took the job at Breckinridge and didn't mind spending nights away from home.
She has since married, and said she's fortunate because her husband has tolerated her being away so much.
McGuinn, 53, said it took her about an hour to stoke all three boilers. She would have to do it every couple of hours when the temperature dropped into the 20s. The coal cellar was adjacent to the boiler room.
The boilers were installed when the building was constructed in 1932. The school was the original William Fleming High until 1961, when it became a middle school and was renamed Breckinridge.
McGuinn can shovel coal and handle the other duties of a manager's job as well as her male counterparts, said Gary Willard, a supervisor in the school system's building operations department.
"She does an excellent job. She has a good attendance record and has been a good building manager for us," Willard said.
She worked in school cafeterias and maintenance services for nearly five years before becoming a building manager.
McGuinn describes herself as a jack of all trades. Besides stoking boilers, she performs routine building maintenance, installs light bulbs, mows the grass, trims the shrubs, sweeps the parking lot and supervises the night cleaning crews.
At Jackson Middle, McGuinn will have all of the same duties she's had at Breckinridge except shoveling coal, Willard said.
The city will get its second female building manager next year. Angela Feather has been appointed to the position at Raleigh Court Elementary, but she won't have to shovel coal.
With the closing of Breckinridge for renovations, only two city schools are left with coal-fired boilers - Addison Middle and Woodrow Wilson Middle. Both will get gas heating systems during the next few years.
Woodrow Wilson will be closed for renovation during the 1997-98 school year, with Addison to follow in 1998-99. Coal-fired boilers were replaced at several elementary schools in recent years during renovation projects.
Construction will begin soon on Breckinridge's $6 million makeover. Everything except the historic front facade, circular driveway and tree-lined entranceway will be torn down and rebuilt.
McGuinn said she would like to return to Breckinridge after the new heating system is installed, but she doesn't know whether she'll get the chance.
"I'd like to go back there and push buttons instead of shoveling coal," she said. "That would be nice. I would like that."
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS/Staff. Breckinridge Middleby CNBSchool's Rita McGuinn, Roanoke Schools' first female building
manager, has been reassigned to Jackson Middle School, which will
reopen this fall after being closed for renovations.