It’s not what it seems; No one is reaching for puns when they say that Rebekkah “Bekkah” Berryhill, the grounds manager in University Facilities Management for Թ’s Թ Campus is down-to-earth and a well-grounded, happily fulfilled person.
She shared her story of how she arrived at Թ State as a student athlete, became a student worker in the grounds crew, became a university employee and then, nearly 30 years later, became the grounds manager in charge of the entire Թ Campus.
How a Buckeye Legacy Arrived at Թ State
Both of Berryhill’s parents had graduated from Ohio State University, and she felt that’s also where she would be going to college. So, when one of her friends who was a year older than her, who was attending Թ State on a softball scholarship invited Berryhill to visit, she thought she’d hang out and see out what a college that was different than Ohio State was like.
When she was recruited by Թ State to pay softball, Berryhill admits that the only reason she had known about Թ State was because her friend went there.
‘The Right Decision’
So many college students share the same doubts in their first year at a college or university: Did I make the right choice? Is this the right place for me. Then comes that moment, that experience, that event that “flips the switch” and makes them say “Yes, I belong here.”
For Berryhill that event happened as she was riding on the back of a mountain bike on a quest to get a soda from a convenient store. Pedaling the bike was the person who would become her very best friend – for life.
They had met on the first day of classes; they were in the same orientation class. As they were walking back toward Tri-Towers, they realized that they both lived in Koonce Hall. Later, they saw each other in the lunch line and found that they were both heading to the same first-year activity later. Her friend suggested that they get a soda first and invited Berryhill to hop on the back of her bike and come with her to the Dairy Mart on East Main (which was later a Circle K, a different convenience store and is now the future home of Flash Crepes).
With it being their first day, they lost their bearings and couldn’t find their way back to Tri-Towers. But in being lost together, they each found a best friend. “We just instantly bonded over that,” said Berryhill. “And that very night, I knew that I had made the right decision in coming here because I was pretty anxious, pretty shy; mostly introverted.”
And I met someone who was absolutely extroverted ad did all the talking for me, made the jokes and just absolutely was the ‘yin to my yang,’” she said. “And from that point on, I had the confidence of knowing that school was going to be okay; I can make friendships.”
Changes in Direction and Finding Her True Path
Berryhill started out at Թ State with the intent to become an educator. Her mother was an educator and her father taught at a law school. Being into athletics and physical activity, she said her thought was “I’m going to go into a physical education, and I will be a PE teacher and a coach. I will get to wear a sweatsuit and be happy kicking balls around and swinging golf clubs.”
She said that she “loved the coursework,” but when it the program reached the phase of actually teaching students, Berryhill the introvert realized that this might not be the right path for her. “I felt like it wouldn’t be fair to become a teacher and give these kids a shell of a person; an anxious person who wasn’t comfortable speaking in front of the class,” she said.
Then, a shoulder injury while competing on Թ State’s Track & Field Team in the hammer throw, shot put and discus sidelined her athletic activities. “I felt like I was in that cycle of where I thought my life would go and where I actually ended up,” said Berryhill. “I was not in a horrible place, but definitely not where I thought it would be.”
‘You Mean We Get Paid to Get a Tan?’
One day, Berryhill met one of her friends who was on her way to work. She told Berryhill that he was going to work in the grounds department. Berryhill said, “What does that even mean?” Her friend explained that they “get to pull weeds and stuff.” Berryhill said, “Okay, that sounds cool. You mean we get paid to get a tan?”
That was when she became a student worker in the grounds department, a job she said “she absolutely fell in love with” because it kept her physically active, she was able to interact with nature and not have to present in front of a classroom. And she could also get a tan.
As a child, Berryhill said she “was always a kid who was outside, always riding my bike going for hikes.” When she started working in the grounds department she said, “Something just turned, and it clicked and like that comfortable shoe, it absolutely felt just right.”
'Why doesn’t everybody want to do this?’
On another day, while working campus, she saw a woman with braids driving a lawn mower. At the time, she was thinking that student would work in the grounds department for a few summers and then move on. When she saw the woman on the mower, she had an epiphany. “She’s not a student,” Berryhill said. “That’s a worker and that’s her job; she gets paid real money and gets healthcare and benefits.” This sounded amazing to Berryhill. “I was obsessed with it; why doesn’t everybody want to do this job?!” she said.
Berryhill is still in touch with that woman on the mower, her name is Carla Olson, and she still lives in the area. She was the first female heavy equipment operator at Թ State. “You have to see yourself represented,” she said. “You just have to, it’s so important for people to have that role model.”
“There aren’t a ton of female grounds managers,” Berryhill said. “At least not in this area. Seeing Carla made me realize that even if I’m uncomfortable doing something, being the first at something or just being non-traditional, that maybe I’ll have a meeting with a student or a meeting at a different university and they see ‘Oh, cool, they have a manager that’s female; it’s possible for that to happen to me.’”
Growing Along the Way
While she was a student employee, she was hired by her supervisor as a university groundkeeper. “It’s funny,” Berryhill said. “The world’s come full circle, and I hired him back as a supervisor in the department three years ago.”
The next step up from groundskeeper was to become an equipment operator and then a heavy equipment operator to become the second female heavy equipment operator on campus. Then the position for a supervisor became available and Berryhill moved into that position.
In 2019, Grounds Manager Heather White left the university for another position and Berryhill served as interim manager of grounds before being hired as grounds manager. Now, seven years later she said, “It still feels like I just started; every day there’s a new experience.”
One of those experiences is the annual planting of bulbs on Daffodil Hill following the university’s Veteran’s Day Commemoration. Berryhill saw the opportunity to take an activity performed by the Թ State grounds crew and create is a community event in which veterans, students, faculty, staff and members of the community can pitch in to help sustain this living memorial to the fallen soldiers of the Vietnam War.
Opening up in the Outdoors
When Berryhill is speaking about something she loves, like nature, there’s no trace of the anxiety she felt at the front of a classroom. “It’s a treat when I get to go out for a walk and talk about ‘this is an oak tree; these are the benefits of having this tree.’ “This is what happens when you make this cut to this particular tree,’” she said.
“I love that. I love that stuff. I love the interaction that we can have with our environment and trying to work with it instead of against it,” Berryhill said. “I feel like we waste so much energy in our lives fighting against things that are completely natural. So, we may not have the most manicured lawns on campus, but we’re doing that intentionally because a dandelion is going to be the first food of bees throughout the season; that’s going to be the first flower they can touch and gain nourishment from. And so that is really interesting to me, it’s a passion.”
“Being able to communicate that with other people in the university and provide all kinds of different, cool, new plants- it’s amazing,” she said. “Absolutely; I feel like the luckiest person in the world.”