BY JENNIFER HALLEY CAMPUS LIFE EDITOR
Valsetz Dining Hall is always bustling with people throughout
the week, especially during lunchtime.
Students mill around, trying to decide what to eat, while employees hustle to get everyone what they need. Voices rise over one another in an effort to be heard, the tinny whine of silverware echoes throughout the crowded building, and the drilling ring of the cash register all mix together in a raucous din.
Lunch time at Valsetz is a chaotic couple of hours. Through it all, however, one person stays constant. She spies her regulars right as they come through Valsetz’ double doors and waves at them, beckoning them over.
Once they arrive at the deli counter, she begins to make their sandwich, already memorized in her head – even if that student has only been to get a sandwich once.
As she makes their sandwich, she talks to them, genuinely curious about how their day is going, about who they are as a person. She interacts this way with every student she comes across, every day.
Lovingly dubbed as the Sandwich Lady by her regulars, Cathy Clark works as the deli production assistant for Valsetz Dining Hall.
She has worked there for the past 28 years, and in those 28 years, she has never missed a single day of work. “I enjoy what I do,” Clark said. “It’s not a job, it’s a privilege.”
“When I went in [to get a sandwich], she immediately said hello and asked my name before I picked up a tray,” Lara Valachovic, a sophomore, said. “It was finals week, so she asked how they were going and reminded me not to let myself get too stressed.”
“It’s definitely obvious she loves her job, or at least talking with students,” Valachovic added.
Clark’s passion for people is apparent in the way she interacts with her customers. She understands how hard college can be, and how big of a transition it can be.
“To have played a small role in making that transition a little easier, that’s special,” Clark said. “That’s why I like what I do.”
She added that everyone wants to go somewhere that they feel remembered, and where she works, “the NW corner of Valsetz”, Clark knows it is a place where students feel acknowledged and special and, ultimately, remembered.
She can tell by the students who become her regulars, or just by the student “that comes in and beams and says thank you.”
Students are not the only people Clark impacts, though.
“Cathy is great to work with; she is very reliable,” Ashleigh Hawkins, a senior who works with Clark at Valsetz, said. “She is really very funny and has a great sense of humor. [She’s] a great person to be around.”
Clark is quick to recognize her fellow co-workers in how hard they contribute to making Valsetz an inviting place for the students. They also put their hearts into their work and for Clark, that is what keeps her going.
“We are a supporting team, a community spirit,” Clark said of her co-workers. Before Clark began work at Valsetz, she went to Northwest Christian University (NCU), intending to study social work.
Even though attending NCU did not work out, “this job has kind of evolved into that,” Clark said.
She said that she can learn more from the outside world, than in a classroom, and everything she has learned in her life is valuable.
She added that, each job can be an area of opportunity, in that “we should never stop fine-tuning [ourselves].”
Growing up with a father in the Air Force, Clark has seen a lot and met a variety of people. She was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, started the first grade in the east coast and even lived briefly in Okinawa, Japan.
According to Clark, she is a certified firefighter for the forestry department and worked there for a year.
Eventually, she settled her roots in Monmouth when she started working for Valsetz and has lived here ever since. Outside of work, Clark busies herself with her two cats, interacting with her neighbors, and enjoys doing anything with her hands, whether it is landscaping, gardening or building something.
Clark has two policies she lives by: “to do no harm in my words and actions,” and “to leave it a little better than the way we found it.”
If she can still work at Valsetz when she’s 80 years old, then “let’s do it,” Clark said.
