Two Hamilton County employees who started work the same day in February 1979 made matching exits Wednesday.
Don Allen, director of emergency management, and Worth Lillard, director of maintenance, were honored at a retirement reception in the rotunda of the Hamilton County Courthouse. County Mayor Jim Coppinger hosted and crowds of county officials, friends, families and well-wishers were there to offer congratulations and share memories.
Lillard called his career “a great job in a great place” and credited his crew for their hard work.
He said he practically grew up in the courthouse; his dad was the head of the planning commission in the late 1940s and early ’50s.
“It’s a great old building,” he said afterward, looking up at the marble columns supporting the dome high overhead. There have been numerous restoration and preservation challenges over the years. But one of the things he remembers as most-improved is outside: the front lawn.
When the former courthouse burned in 1910, he said workers clearing the site pushed big piles of bricks over onto the lawn and buried them. The replacement courthouse, designed by Reuben H. Hunt and costing $350,000, was dedicated in 1931.
On his watch, he said, county Public Works crews dug up and carted away that brick, restored the soil and created the beds and shrubbery that grace the building’s exterior.
When Allen stepped up to the microphone, someone in the crowd yelled, “I voted for you, Don,” to general laughter. It was an inside joke that Allen explained: he used to tell any and all county commissioners – who fund his budget – that he had voted for them.
“It’s entirely possible that was a gross exaggeration,” Allen admitted.
In 1993, when a winter blizzard dumped nearly 2 feet of snow on the city, Allen remembered emergency officials sleeping on the floor of the old justice building and using rotary dial phones to coordinate response to a regionwide emergency.
“We were there for four days,” he said.
Now the county’s emergency response has all the bells and whistles – and it’s a good thing, too.
Five years ago, when deadly tornadoes swept through the tri-state area in April and demolished parts of Apison, the county was able to respond.
Allen recalls walking among piles of sticks that used to be homes, talking to people who had lost everything but were “just glad to be alive.”
He said his career was “a labor of love and a ministry to people.”
Contact staff writer Judy Walton at jwalton@times freepres.com or 423-757-6416.