Letter: Recognizing an outstanding humanitarian

Talk about it

Several years ago I wrote into this column to give thanks to a viable, valuable member of our community. Many things change over the years, but this person’s commitment to serving the community, her contracts and her neighbors — unselfishly, I might add — remains the same. With her cast of characters complete — most notably, on our part, Moe — she has spun a tale of exemplary service that has not only earned her the title of “Business Woman of the Year” but should also earn her the title of “Humanitarian of the Decade” in our eyes.

History. Oh, I guess it was probably 10 years ago that I was standing on the corner of 250th Street and Sundberg Avenue, shoveling out the road in between sips of snow-cooled beer when this woman drove up in a Blazer-type vehicle and asked me what I was doing. “Duh,” I thought. This woman asked me if I knew who she was, and I told her I didn’t. She told me to put down the shovel and she’d take care of the rest. To say more at this point would give away the name of the person singularly responsible for us being able to get to work, snow after snow, for all these years. And then things changed — drastically.

During the Jan. 7 blizzard when the Department of Transportation advised no travel and we still had to get into work at JBS, work all day and then sent out the door to get home the best we could at the end of our shift, we called this woman. Through snows and blizzard conditions where one couldn’t see five feet in front of the vehicle, she guided us via cell phone, past piled-up cars in ditches, to one of her own plow guys that had cut his way — our way — to home. Her guy, Moe, had been working almost 24 hours to make sure that town people had gotten home, and he was the last plow on the road even though all state, county and federal plows had been pulled off the roads hours before. He escorted us to our country abode and drove away with a thumbs-up.

So, who am I talking about? Susanne Murphy. Just as dedicated today as she was nine or 10 years ago when I first met her. She has got to be the epitome of caring and concern in this Worthington community. Thank you, Susanne and Moe, and for every other employee of Worthington Excavation, that help us little people get to and from our jobs. We cannot say it enough — thank you.

Tags: worthington excavation, susanne murphy, opinion, letters