The year Evie Reiners started working at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Neil Armstrong took the first steps on the moon, and the Husker football team had no national championships. Over the last 45 years from her vantage point as a secretary and later assistant to the department chair, she has seen many changes on the UNL campus.
Most important to her was the dramatic change in campus accessibility for people with disabilities. Reiners spent “a long time” in Children’s Hospital in Denver as a five-year-old. The youngest of five children growing up on a farm near McCook, Nebraska, she was afflicted with polio. She still has memories of the iron lung machines lining the hospital hallways.
Despite her disability that required her to use braces and crutches, Reiners made her way to Lincoln and became the first in her family to earn a college degree. It wasn’t easy climbing the steps of the old Business College Building and the old Teachers College Building to third floor classrooms.
“Back in the day, no way would a classroom be changed for one person,” said Reiners. “We have done that several times to make it easier for a person to be able to get to class.”
Other life-changing advancements Reiners observed included the Wang word processor which allowed her to more efficiently prepare grant applications, but the “one big change that was very welcome” was the personal computer at her own work station. She also noted the convenience of communicating with co-workers in the department and throughout campus with the advent of email.
Reiners’ 45-year journey at UNL started when her Business Teacher Education instructors connected her to Dr. Robert Stepp, Jr. who hired her as a work study student in the Midwest Regional Media Center for the Deaf (MRMCD). Upon graduation, she was hired as the secretary for production at MRMCD and then was secretary for Dr. Stepp, who was director of the center. She later became Dr. Stepp’s assistant, and when the department moved to East Campus, she was offered the job of assistant to the director. Reiners will retire from that position today (Friday, Aug. 29).
During her 45 years, Reiners has worked for only three bosses—Dr. Stepp (1969-1983), Dr. John Bernthal (1983-2011) and most recently Dr. Sherri Jones, who first crossed paths with Reiners as a student at UNL.
“I have been so lucky to work with so many special people, both faculty and staff, throughout my years at UNL,” said Reiners. “I want to express to my peers that we do play a big part in what our departments accomplish, so always take pride in your work, no matter the job.”
“Evie is always interested in people’s well-being and their family’s well-being,” said Jones. “She’s a very thoughtful person who thinks of the little things to ask that makes the relationship personal. It’s been nice to experience Evie as both a student and now as department chair.”
The Barkley Center has gone from conception to completion with two additions during Reiners’ watch. She’s also seen two departments merge into one. She’s proud of her “small part in the great things that happen here every day” and is “very thankful for being allowed to work here 45 years.” Mostly though, it’s the people that she cherishes.
“I have made what I hope are lifelong friends, as several I have known almost since my first day at UNL,” said Reiners. “I honestly do not believe that I would have stayed at UNL this long if I didn't enjoy the people I worked with, along with how varied the tasks have been throughout my tenure.
“As to what I will do in retirement, I have been prompted by several people to just say, ‘I don't know because I have never retired before, so I will just do anything I want to do!’”