Williamston High students pick custodian to lead parade
WILLIAMSTON — Gary Aungst said he was shocked to learn last week that the kids at Williamston High School picked him as the grand marshal in Friday night's homecoming parade.
Especially "somebody of my stature."
He is, after all, the school's janitor.
But stature is relative. To the students who selected him, Aungst stands as tall as the school he's watched over for 38 of his 57 years.
"He's always just there and smiling in the hallways," said Anna Goff, a 17-year-old senior. "I can't tell you a day that I don't walk by him in the hallway and think how he's working so hard."
Anna was one of a group of Student Government members who picked Aungst from a group of nominees from both the school and community. She said the selection was "pretty much unanimous."
"He's a hard worker and he's been around a long time," said Hannah Robinson, another 17-year old senior who also was in on the voting.
When asked if he was close to the kids at Williamston High School, Aungst replied with a laugh: "Evidently I'm closer than I thought I was."
So what is he going to do at Friday night's parade? Superintendent Narda Murphy and high school Principal Jeff Thoenes, both obviously pleased with the students' selection, are coaxing him to do the "princess wave" — forearm straight up, palm facing the sky and a slight turn of the wrist.
"Honest to God, I hope I don't have to give a speech!" Aungst said.
One student remarked that she can't wait to see him in a suit, but Aungst says he's "not much of a suit kind of a guy."
Aungst said his only requirement concerns his mode of travel in the parade. The convertible lined up for him must be big enough to accommodate Aungst, his wife, Rene, and their 28-year-old daughter, Sarah. Sarah is a band director for Central Lake High School, east of Torch Lake in northern Michigan.
"They're my anchors," Aungst said.
A famous twin
He reportedly does a great impersonation of musician Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, and might — or might not, he isn't sure — pull one off at the parade.
Actually, it's hard not to think of Gibbons upon meeting Aungst. He sports a beard that ends somewhere in the middle of his torso, covering the "Williamston High School" on the left side of his green shirt. All the same, a smile easily shines through.
Why does he have it? From his teens onward, Aungst and razors never got along. It didn't matter if he used a straight razor or an electric one, his face always burned.
He and Rene were married in October 1977, and he trimmed it all down to long sideburns to please his future mother-in-law.
"I've never shaved clean since then," he said.
But like its owner, there's a serious side to the beard, too.
Rene was diagnosed with a brain tumor in the fall of 1995. After surgery she was in a recovery room, able to hear but unable to open her eyes.
"She reached out and felt my face and felt my beard, and she says 'Don't cut that,'" he recalled 20 years later. "So ever since then I've never cut it down. I've trimmed it a little bit but I've never cut it down."
The years go by
Aungst, who grew up in Weidman near Mount Pleasant and came to Williamston at the age of 12, starts his workday at 6 a.m. when he opens up the high school. There are certain parts of the building he cleans and maintains every day, and he can be spotted on what the kids call his "Zamboni", a motorized floor machine he uses regularly. Other than that, he said, it's an on-call job.
And there's always something different.
"Yesterday we had a blood drive and I got the cleanups, because once in a while things don't pan out too well for the kids," he said. "When they're giving blood they get a little ill sometimes ...
"I won't go into too much detail," Aungst said, chuckling.
"His pride in maintaining and cleaning the building is clear whenever visitors come to the school," Thoenes said.
Then there are the pranks. Some years ago a group of seniors removed the partitions in the bathroom stalls and greased the locker room locks. While he admits it upset him at the time, it's all a humorous memory now — not that he encourages that sort of thing.
But it does cause him to reflect on all the students he's known, some of them now parents of kids he greets each morning today.
"I think that the kids seem a lot more well-behaved now," Aungst said. "I don't think there are as many rebels as there used to be — being a rebel myself back in the day."
After some thought, Aungst appeared to think his stature might be considerable after all.
"I have had kids in the past come up and say 'If it hadn't been for you' I never would have made it through this or that," he said. "I know that once in a while I've offered a hand up to a few kids. Nothing more than a smile or hello to make somebody's day better.
"The kids have always been good to me."
Williamston High School's homecoming parade starts at 6 p.m. Friday. It begins in the parking lot of St. Mary's Catholic Church, 203 High St., and will follow a route down Grand River Avenue to the football stadium. Williamston plays Fowlerville High School at 7 p.m.