By Heather Johnson-MPCC
NORTH PLATTE, Neb.-One of North Platte Community College’s longest-serving employees will retire next month.
Jerry Thompson, NPCC’s vehicle maintenance technician, has worked at the college for 41 years – 42 if you count his first year, which was part-time. His last day will be April 10.
“I hired on in March of 1978 and then just never left,” Thompson said.
Thompson has lived in North Platte his entire life. He entered the U.S. Navy after graduating from North Platte High School in 1971, serving as a machinist’s mate petty officer second class where he was submarine qualified.
“I went into diesel mechanics because I worked in the engine room on a diesel-electric submarine and thought diesel mechanics was as good of a job as any,” Thompson said. “I figured I would go through the program at NPCC, using the GI Bill, then go to work for a diesel shop somewhere.”
He never got the chance. Thompson was still in college when the first-year diesel instructor, Gerald Bevins, asked him if he would be interested in a part-time job. It consisted primarily of mowing the NPCC North Campus and keeping the college’s lawnmowers and a handful of vehicles maintained.
“I jumped on it,” Thompson said. “I was just married at that time and only had a part-time job at a package store. My wife was working full-time while I went to school. Gerald referred me to Bill Powers who gave me the job.”
Thompson hadn’t graduated, yet, when Jim Doyle, then the dean of vocational instruction, offered to make Thompson’s job full-time.
“The rest is history,” Thompson said. “I never regretted not working at a diesel shop, although I did get to do some of that kind of work at the college. NPCC has diesel buses along with other diesel equipment that has to be kept up.”
His job remained pretty much the same over the years – fueling and servicing the college’s fleet, rotating tires, changing oil and generally making sure vehicles were ready to take out on the road along with maintaining the fuel pumps and keeping records of everything vehicle-related.
The number and kind of vehicles he was responsible for, however, changed drastically.
“When I started, the college had five cars, including an old ’56 mail car, but only two of them were ever really driven anywhere,” Thompson said. “At that time, the college didn’t have any community campuses, and employees in North Platte rarely traveled to McCook. Similarly, McCook employees rarely traveled to North Platte, even though the campuses are all under the same umbrella.”
The college’s initial vehicles came from a military surplus organization in Lincoln. Eventually, Don Wilson, former auto body instructor, began purchasing wrecked cars at auctions.
“He would usually get them from Denver, then his auto body class would fix them up and the school would use them,” Thompson said. “The college then moved up to buying program vehicles, and more recently, it has been able to secure new ones. They sit in a bus barn now instead of beside a fence lining a field, and the number has increased to five cars, two buses, a 15-passenger van, four mini-vans and eight pickups.”
The thing that has changed the most during Thompson’s time at the college, however, has been the people. Coincidentally, that’s also what he’s going to miss the most.
“I’ve seen a lot of them come and go, and I’ve enjoyed every one,” Thompson said. “I’m not going to miss getting up at 5 a.m. to be at the college at 6, but I am going to miss those relationships I built. It has always been the sense of family that kept me at NPCC.”