By Gary Lee Stuber
Clay County has some beautiful architecture, and none more beautiful than the new Clay County Courthouse. It’s amazing we still refer to it as new, even though it’s been in place a generation now. And if you think it is beautiful on the outside, the inside takes your breath away, thanks largely to Rebecca Adkins. Let’s say she is maintenance, landscaping, and janitorial. Do you think it stays this beautiful on its own?
“I started out as part time,” she says, “I started out as somebody’s relief. When they called off, I would do their shift. I was responsible for the whole building and the outside. I weedeat, pressure wash, wash windows, and do the floors, both this level and upstairs.”
And it wasn’t just this building when she first started, “We would do this courthouse as well as the old courthouse.” The enormity of the work is staggering. It’s not possible that anyone doing business at the courthouse hasn’t run into her. “I’ve been doing this for 15 years on my own now,” she says, and if you have never actually run into her, you have smelled the results. The atmosphere often smells like a hospital ward, clean and sanitized. She occupies a small office barely bigger than a closet, just inside the back sliding doors to the right, next to the elevator. She shares the space with her cleaning supplies. Behind and above her desk is what she refers to as her brag wall. It is dotted with page after page of children’s artwork.
Rebecca says she was born in Roane County but has been a Clay County girl since eighth grade. Go Mustangs! Go Panthers! She now has two married children. Courtney Sattler has given her grandchildren Skyler, Jamison, and Zeke, who have tried their best to show Mamaw their love in pictures. Her son Ryan is married to Gracy, but they have yet to have children.
There might be a reason that you rarely see Rebecca. “I get here 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning before the doors open to do the floors. I don’t want to inconvenience people, and you know it is hard to work around morning traffic.” And for the offices within? “I clean up the courtrooms after court, and offices generally when they are closed. In the summertime, I weedeat, clean out drain holes on the grounds behind the courthouse, and keep the place nice and presentable.”
For those who have been to the courthouse, there is an inside “garden.” So she is landscaper inside and out.
“I do the maintenance here as well. I have never had a broken window, but when the doors go down I have a vendor we call for repair. But for largely everything else, that’s me. Often I have to clean out air conditioners, change filters, do minor repairs on various things. I do whatever I can to keep people from being called in for minor fixes. I used to change the ceiling lights but I can’t climb up there on ladders anymore.” This Mamaw would if she could.
“I was brought in years ago I when they had a shift and a part time, so I was his part time. For instance when Walter called off, Trina was the other full time shift and she took his place, and I took Trina’s place. Eventually it was down to Walter and myself. And I was up on the hill where I cleaned the old courthouse. When Walter called off I cleaned the old courthouse and then came down here and cleaned this one. When Walter quit, the full time job here fell to me.”
“During covid we had special protocols,” she explained. “We would have to go into meeting rooms and courtrooms and wipe everything down with antiseptics, before and after use.”
The next time you are at the courthouse and you see Rebecca at task inside or out, tell her how marvelous her work is, or just say hello.
