School Kids Elect 83-Year-Old Janitor As King On His Last Day Before Retiring

 83 year John Lockett works as a local janitor at a local elementary school in Georgia. A typical day for him involves walking into the building early in the morning, emptying trash cans, wiping down bathrooms and moping wet messes on the hallway.

The kids and teachers at Sand Hill Primary school understand just how much important Mr. John is and when he finally decided to retire, they wanted to give him a proper send off; one that would befit the many years of hard work he has put to make their learning environment conducive.

John has worked at the school for more than a decade after a long career in construction. He finally decided to retire after suffering from health complications.

Described by Principal Carla Meigs as the ‘grandfather at school’, he’s more than just a janitor to the kids. ‘He’s at work every day no matter how bad he feels with a smile on his face,’ Principal Meigs commented about John.

“They’re like my children,” John said in an interview “I’m like the old lady in the shoe.”

On a regular day, students at the school sometimes come up to him to say they’re not feeling well (he sends them to the nurse) or other times to tell him about something that happened at recess. He knows most of the kids at the school but says he can’t name each one.

“I know the little faces, but I don’t know every name,” John said.

To celebrate his last day at work, the children turned him into a king, crowning and also handing him a cape. As he walked down the hallway, they gave him ‘thank you’ cards as they shouted his name.

They handed him so many cards, in fact, that they filled several buckets and students walked behind him to help him collect them all. Tickled by the show of affection, John thanked them all, even the ones whose backpacks he regularly retrieves from the lunchroom when they forget them.

The epitome of the day was the handing over of the cake that was saying ‘Happy Mr. John Day’ and a framed print that highlighted his work for everyone to see.

At the bottom it read; ‘You have made a difference to the lives of so many.’

Mr. John said: ‘These kids mean the world to me. I come here and try to clean their school and I try to do it right because I know germs and disease is out there. ‘The school is definitely a family to me.’