SCOTT CITY STUDENTS EXTEND KINDNESS

SCOTT CITY -- Sixth-grade students at Scott City Middle School racked their brains trying to figure out how to get a janitor into their classroom for a surprise party Tuesday afternoon.

Some thought he should be summoned to sweep up a mess; others said someone should ask him for a roll of paper towels. Whatever the request, it had to be good enough to attract Jim Smith into a classroom.

The students had planned a surprise party for Smith, their hall janitor. He's affectionately called "Jimbo" by teachers and students alike and is retiring this year after 30 years at the school. His brother Frank is also retiring after nearly 40 years at the school.

Student Rick Baylis tried to find Smith and ask that he come to the room. But in the end it took a summons from the principal's office to get Smith to Sarah Pruden's classroom.

As soon as he arrived, 85 students wearing yellow Random Acts of Kindness stickers yelled "Surprise!" in unison and applauded.

Surprised he was. "I don't know what to say," Smith told them as they pointed him toward a cake. "Now I know why all those rooms were empty as I walked down the hall."

Dressed in blue jeans and a school T-shirt, Smith gladly displayed his cake, complete with a photograph of him, and accepted gifts from the students and teachers. A poster on the center table wished him well in his retirement.

Smith started working at the school in 1967 and worked at night in the high school building. He was soon drafted into the armed forces during Vietnam but quickly returned to the school, his alma mater.

When he returned Smith worked at the old Illmo elementary school building and then the upper hall before moving to the high school and eventually the middle school.

He has been at the school long enough to know all the nooks and hidden closets, but the work isn't what he will miss most, Smith said. The messes aren't any worse today than they were 30 years ago, he said. "They're just being kids. That hasn't changed from when I was in school."

What Smith will miss are "the kids and the teachers. You can't work at a place for 30 years and then leave without missing someone," he said.

But Smith doesn't plan to quit working entirely. He also cleans several offices in Scott City and will continue that business after leaving the school.