By Jillian McGuire

We know him as the man who makes our day with his sense of humor and speaking in silly voices. He is someone who makes cakes for our birthdays and decorates the school for holidays. Steve Miller is much more to us than a custodian at our school.

“I love talking to Steve, he’s probably one of my favorite people in the school, because his sense of humor is the best,” said junior Abby Davidson.

“One memory I have of Steve is when he baked me a birthday cake,” said junior Maddy Steen.  “I was just sitting in the hallway, and he justs hands me a cake with frosting covered in strawberries. It was really delicious. I shared it with my Spanish class, and everyone loved it, it helped me gain Spanish popularity.”

Celebrating student birthdays is a long-standing tradition for Miller. Back when he was a custodian in Lisbon, he made cupcakes for students.“When I first moved here from working at Lisbon for 18 and a half years, I realized the kids here don’t use their lockers, like they did at Lisbon, so instead of making cupcakes, and putting them in the lockers, I decided I would just make cakes, and hand them out,” said Miller. If he had extra cupcakes, Miller would often put them in random students’ lockers in Lisbon as a surprise. Miller listens to the announcements to hear freshman students’ birthdays to plan for the possibility of making a cake for their special day sometime over the next three years.

Miller made a point to buy girl scout cookies from a majority of the girl scouts at school, and he can be seen wearing T-shirts purchased from many school activities.  One of those activities is the Shaving Cream Classic, where Miller is often a participant on the staff team in the boys’ volleyball tournament put on by the journalism students.

Staff can often find Steve joking with the students in the hallways, helping students with extracurricular activities, or rooting for athletes at home games.

“One time during speech practice, Steve came in to change the trash, and he ended up helping us move chairs, said Shainne Sneed. “When he picked up the chair, it ended up breaking, and while he fixed it, we had a great bonding session.”

“He always makes my day,” said sophomore Ella Wischmeyer.

Every staff member at Mount Vernon High School knows Steve Miller, a 1983 Lisbon graduate as our fun-loving custodian who is passionate about the everything that comes with his job.

Not every school is as lucky as Mount Vernon to have a custodian who spends countless hours dedicated to not only cleaning up messes but most importantly cheering them up.