Few environments are more demanding for a mower than a school. Trees, hills, entrance ways, ball diamonds and football fields require machines to mow on a variety of landscapes with equal agility. For Humke Elementary, in Nekoosa, Wisconsin, the demands are even more challenging since the school grounds are open in the summer to host baseball leagues.
"In the mowing season. our Walker works eight hours a day, five days a week," tells Dan Gallagher, maintenance custodian at Humke. He's the one doing the mowing... along with other maintenance work inside and outside the school.
School Daze
Remember back to those elementary days. The janitor was the person who kept the building warm in the winter, walks shoveled, clocks ticking, lights and loudspeaker running. He's the one who cleaned up spills, fixed broken desks and doors and overall kept the place going.
What does it take to be a janitor? Dan spent 13 years in the building trade prior to Humke. He's qualified to do nearly any chore asked of him. Janitors and custodians are the true "jack-of-all-trades" people.
The day Walker Manufacturing visited the school, Dan was in the midst of a typical day. He was putting up a fence around one of three ball fields, preparing the cafeteria for gym class, checking out a grease stain on a classroom floor and talking with the principal about the heating system. And there was a pile of work orders building up on his desk.
With this kind of schedule, there's no time to mess around with mowing. When there's mowing to be done, you mow, as quickly and as efficiently as possible.
Lock, Stock and Barrel
Last year, Humke Elementary needed a new mower. The garden tractor it had been using was on its last legs. Dan wanted to upgrade to a professional-type rider but a handicap wouldn't allow him to use a mower with a foot pedal. It was either another garden tractor or finding a rider that would be easy to operate.
"My supervisor saw a Walker at the dealer in town," relates Dan. “The dealer, TT’s Small Engine Repair, brought the mower over for a demonstration and he bought it lock, stock and barrel."
"One of the first things I saw when the mower arrived was a sheet of paper with signatures from the factory people who built the mower," remembers Dan. “That tells me the machine was built with pride.'' Later, the following year when mowing season kicked in. he discovered that durability and pride go hand in hand.
"The machine is real durable, from its engine and transmission to the deck. If you hit the base of the cement foundation of a light pole, the deck is unfazed. And if you hit an object while mowing, two little shear pins act as a safety measure to avoid damaging the mower."
Which only further demonstrates what Dan now believes, "If there's a mowing job to do, there's a Walker built to do it." Coming from a maintenance custodian, that says a lot
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