Todd Day has worked for Centennial High School for an astounding 30 years. With 10,950 days in the district, Day has many memories–good and bad–about his career which is about to come to an end.

This December, Day plans on leaving the district and go into retirement.

“I have had the incredible pleasure of working with incredible people and staff where my life has been fully enriched by the people I have met here.  As I’ve seen infrastructure and students decline, the people have been the one constant,” said Day.

One of his close work friends, Shelley Johnson, said, “I love him, I call him ‘Hot Toddy,’” based off the drink. “I have known him since ‘95ish, and he was just a young kid, married and just had twin kids.”

Those “kids” now have kids of their own and Day looks forward to spending time with his grandchildren, as well as working in his yard. However, he doesn’t have any specific plans, yet.

“I’m not really sure yet, I’m going to start with enjoying time off with my seven grandchildren,” said Day.

“We’ll see how things go financially and take it from there.”

During the first 10 years of his career, “200 hours of labor more a week,” Day said there was one full time and one half time maintenance worker.

For the middle 10 years, a major remodeling was occurring in the building, as well as a start to many new staff members joining the staff.

For the last 10 years of his career, “We were just trying to keep our heads above water, the one constant during the entire 30 years is the people, the styles may change, but their still the same people,” he said.

He will mostly miss the “staff and students; there is a lot of love in this building,” he said.

Years ago, he came in and was wondering why there was a President’s Day and not a “Todd Day Day.”

“So one year on April Fool’s Day, we called it Todd Day Day. We would bring him a present and a card, it was on April Fool’s Day because he is a fool,” said Johnson with laughter.  “He is my sweet friend.”

“My best memories are seeing and being a part of making kids smile,” he said.