Erin Blasinski
Editor-in-Chief
October 15, 2004
He describes his last 18 years at Milligan with one word: fulfilling.
Leonard Beattie, director of the physical plant, is retiring from Milligan College. His last day of service to the campus is today, Friday Oct. 15.
Beattie has seen Milligan change drastically since he first stepped foot on campus on March 31, 1986.
“There are larger, bigger, newer buildings that we ever had before,” said Beattie. “It’s totally new since I’ve been at Milligan.”
Before coming to Milligan, Beattie worked for the power company and had worked for 25 years at his church in Florida. He was in charge of the bus ministry, buildings, grounds and teaching sixth grade Sunday school.
“I left a very good job in Florida with the power company and took a pay cut to come (to Milligan),” said Beattie. “I felt like the Lord was sending me here.”
With so many responsibilities at the church he worked at Beattie was unsure what would happen if he left. After his second interview with Milligan he knew he was supposed to leave Florida. He didn’t know, however, what would happen with the jobs he had at the church he was attending.
“Within three weeks there were no jobs at the church,” said Beattie. “It would make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
Beattie said that someone took over the bus ministry with 13 busses, a couple volunteered to teach the Sunday school class, someone was hired part time for buildings and grounds keeping and a security system was put in place.
“One thing after another was taken away,” he said.
Beattie and his wife came to Milligan and said that it has been an experience. The Lord kept blessing them, he said, even when there was not a lot of money.
“Leonard came to Milligan at a very important time when the college’s Physical Plant was in need of a hard working, responsible, get-it-done person, and Leonard ‘fit the bill’ very well,” said Joe Whitaker, Leonard’s supervisor since 1989.
His first job at Milligan was to put a metal roof on the field house. The roof had been gone for two years, Beattie said, and the temporary roof was canvas with air pressure to hold it up.
Beattie oversaw the construction of the present Student Union Building and remodeled the old SUB, which turned into Paxson Communication Building.
“We gutted it to the four outside walls and built it back,” Beattie said.
He and the physical plant workers built Williams, Kegley and Quillen. Williams took seven to eight months to construct but building Kegley and Quillen gave Beattie his most interest challenge.
“We had from the time school was over to start building and take Pardee Hall down,” he said. “But we couldn’t take Pardee down until the others were built.”
With an eight member crew, Beattie and his men worked after hours and overtime to finish before students began moving in after the summer. He said that students were moving in as the painters were finishing the inside of the buildings.
Whitaker said he can think of many accomplishments that Beattie has done “but one that readily comes to mind was the oversight of the building of Kegley, Quillen and Williams residence halls using local contractors within a very tight timeframe.”
Beattie also helped with construction on the soccer fields and installing the lights, repairing roofs on Seeger, the Science building, Webb, Sutton and MSA and remodeling Derthick Hall.
“While Leonard has been here, several new buildings and renovations have been completed,” said Theresa McCrary, service manager for housekeeping, who has worked with Beattie for 12 years. “He was always willing to keep an eye out for the campus. He cared about the faculty, staff and students.”
In addition to overseeing his maintenance responsibilities, Beattie has seen his share of pranks during his time here, some good and some bad, he notes.
“I enjoyed the pranks and laughed a lot at them,” he said. “I marveled at the innovation of what students come up with.”
One of the funniest moments, Beattie recalls, was a tennis ball machine that was set in the baptistery with a timer that went off during chapel. He said it was shooting tennis balls as Dr. Leggett was speaking.
Beattie remembers when some students put Dr. Leggett’s boat in the creek, and when fish and bubble baths were put in the fountain that used to be outside Derthick. He also remembers when a Volkswagen Beetle ended up in the lobby of Derthick and Sutton.
Whitaker said that Leonard’s presence at Milligan has put the college “in a very good position to grow the department’s service in the near future.”
“He is a very caring, dedicated person,” said Sandy Deyton, secretary in the Physical Plant. “He always goes above and beyond in whatever he does.”
When asked about what he enjoyed the most about working at Milligan, Beattie said, “The challenges, opportunities, meeting needs, solving problems and working with the people.”