Interview with Karen Walk, Part 1

As many people know, this season was Karen Walk’s last season as the Blue Band’s staff assistant. She has acted as the “Blue Band Mom” for 26 years and has been a smiling face at the front desk since the construction of the Blue Band Building. While everyone in the band knows and loves Karen, some might not know how she came to be where she is now. I sat down with Karen at her desk in the Blue Band Building on March 28. What started as a list of a few predetermined questions turned into a brand new insight into the life of everyone’s favorite staff member.

Me: So Karen, where are you from?

Karen: A small town, Howard, which is just north of University Park, about 20-25 minutes. A small town, a very small town. I went to a small school, Bald Eagle, also just north of here. I graduated in ’78.

Me: When did you start working for Penn State?

Karen: I left High School June of ’78, went on my school’s band trip, that year it was to Disney. We left the week we graduated and while I was in Disney I got the call, did I want a job. It started one week after high school graduation. I was one of the few in my class… Many knew that they were going to go on to college, but of those who had done a vocational-type thing, I was one of the few that had a job. And I knew right away that I was coming here to work.

Me: What did you play in the band?

Karen: Trumpet. Ya, I was a trumpet player.

Me: Do you still keep it up?

Karen: People want me to, but I wasn’t ever a really good musician. I don’t sight-read very well and I never really learned theory of music. I can play and I can still pick up a horn, but I just don’t sound that great. Now, they want me to play in church. There’s a group of musicians that play in church, and I have one of our horns here, at home, that I borrowed. Just to pick it up though… I was never a great musician and it’s not that I’m not interested; I just don’t think I’m very good. So I don’t try very hard. My little godson comes up, he’s a trumpet player. We were playing the other day and I heard he told his mom (he doesn’t know that I know this) but he told his mom, “She’s a little rusty.” That I am. A little rusty. My husband’s a piano player and plays all the time, he’s an excellent sight reader, he can pick up a piece and just play, play, play. I am in church choir so I’ve gotten better at picking up reading music better, but the playing part… I mean you set it down for 35 years after graduation…

We picked up those instruments, what. Fourth grade? And I stuck with it. We were committed. Mom and Dad both said if we buy you this horn, you’re going to do it for the duration. We’re not going to take no for an answer. So we knew, my sister and I both (she played flute). We had a junior high marching band then, a junior high concert band. Then when we got to Senior High, really, believe it or not, it’s hard to say this, but I hated football band. I hated football band! I felt so lost out there in the field! I don’t know if it was because we didn’t have instruction, but I remember knowing that I couldn’t give it up, Mom’s not going to let me. So I tried out for cheerleading. So I played concert band in winter and the spring and did cheerleading in the fall.

Me: What a good solution!

Karen: And I signed my mom’s name to a permission slip to try out for cheerleading. Guess what? I made cheerleading! I can’t do football band anymore! But I’ll still be in concert band. So who knew I’d end up here with a marching band, where everyone loves marching band.

Me: So how did you start with the Blue Band?

Karen: When I started at Penn State in ’78 I was in the College of Ag. I had actually done what would be called today an internship. But it wasn’t called an internship then, it was called “on the job training.” I did on-the-job training as a business student, and the business teachers would place us. My whole class got placed into real professional businesses for two weeks and you went there instead of school for two weeks as seniors. You had to be there at 8 and you worked ‘til 5. You did everything as though you were the employee there. And you kinda got to pick where you wanted. A lot of the girls in my classes picked banks. They thought they were going to really interesting places, like the Philatelic Society or the Cancer Society, and I think they went to places based on what the office did instead of overall where would you want to work someday. A few of us picked Penn State. There was a program in the College of Ag where they always took advantage of these on-the-job trainees, and I got placed in the College of Ag. Five years earlier it was where my sister had been placed, so they chose me based on my sister having been there. My sister was actually hired there, in that particular job, and then five years later when I came along, she had moved to the Dean’s office in the College of Ag and opened that up again. Since she wasn’t there I was allowed to go there, I wouldn’t have been able to go with a relative [already working there]. So I got to go there and they didn’t have a job opening at the time, but based on all of that, there was a job opening in the College of Ag, which I accepted. That’s how I knew so early that I was going to have a job. I stayed there and did some bookkeeping there and I was in that college for 9 years. Then I happened to see the Blue Band job offering. At that time there was not email and internet, it was a piece of paper stuck on a bulletin board, and I was in charge of putting those notices on the bulletin board in the building. So up the job went and I thought, oh that sounds interesting, so I put my name in for it. It was harder at that time going from college to college because they would always hire within a college first, and to go outside the college was unheard of. I thought I had to wait my turn, that they had to interview everyone in Intercollegiate Athletics before I would here if I would even be interviewed. I got an interview right away, it turns out no one applied for it. Dr. Diehl ended up hiring me, and that was April of ’87. Next month I’ll finish 26 years [with the band].

Me: That’s pretty impressive!

Karen: Ya, it’s been good. I always say it’s the variety. It’s a huge variety