Interview with Karen Walk, Part 2

In the last part of our interview, Karen explains what her job is like, teaches me some shorthand, and gives some really great advice.

Blue Band Staff Assistant Karen Walk at her desk in the Blue Band Building

Me: The Blue Band Office used to be in Chambers. How was working there?

Karen: Well, it’s the whole adage of “you don’t miss what you never had.” You didn’t know any better, so you worked with what you had. We knew we were cramped, we knew it was inconvenient to go across the street to the Music Building for off-season instrument storage. We knew it was even more inconvenient to have the trailers. We knew it was inconvenient, but it was what was there. It was what you worked with. We didn’t have a very good truck, and we just dealt with it. But Chambers itself, the College of Education, was fine. Art Ed and Music Ed were all over there with me at the time so it was nice work-wise, but what the Blue Band didn’t have was really inconvenient. Dr. Diehl had a huge office, Dr. Bundy had a pretty small office, and we all had to go to the School of Music for everything because we didn’t have any storage space in ChambersBuilding at all.

Me: Ya, I know my dad had to keep his uniform in his dorm room.

Karen: That’s right, you were issued a uniform on audition day and you kept it. That’s why the garment bags went by the wayside because they would be dragged across fields. The garment bags were a real issue back then. Even in your dad’s day, it was probably less numbers. So you figure by the time I was there in ’87 it had grown to 250 I think. So the more members you had, the more instruments you had and the more uniforms you had, the less the storage space became because you were getting more and more and more. So it was tough as I look back, it felt tough, but at the time you just did it.

Me: So working here has been a lot more convenient?

Karen: Ya! You look back and you think, “How did we do it?” It’s sort of like you look back and think how did the people who lived in the Depression live in the Depression? You didn’t have this and you didn’t have that and you got an orange for Christmas. Nobody had new clothes. My mom always said, “We didn’t know what we didn’t have. That’s all we knew!” So it’s that feeling. But being here, it’s all about the use of time. We don’t have to take time in the summers to unload the trailers, and we don’t have to take time to clean a shack that we had over there. We don’t have to take time to cram all that stuff in Room 3 in the Music Building. It just flows better. Everything flows better. The physical library, look at that. Square footage, the room we had in Chambers building was probably comparable square footage, but you didn’t have a library system. You had file cabinets sitting on top of file cabinets and you’d crawl on a table to get to a drawer and that file cabinet would tip! So convenience-wise, it just works smoother. We have an archive room, an AV room, things have a home. You know where everything is.

Me: Describe a typical day in your job during a Blue Band season.

Karen: Well, a typical day is coming in and constantly trying to be one step ahead. So it’s always thinking ahead. Is it a travel week, is it a home week, is it an away week? And what needs to be done in today’s rehearsal that’s going to accomplish the most to get towards the goal of what’s going on for that week. What does Dr. Bundy need today? Do we need to gather anything travel or business-wise, or is it just doing office stuff and I don’t need anything on the field. Is it a guide/squad leader day? Are there special charts that need to be done today? Are we playing music where we need to be sure that the contracts and licenses are done and ready? Do I need to give the librarians something that they need on the field? So it’s constant communication.

A typical day is trying to be one step ahead to make sure each officer knows what they need to do to help the director, what I need to do, what the grad students need to do. A typical day is organization. It’s so variable, it’s hard to give a typical day because it all depends if it’s an away week, a travel week, a home week, an off week, an audition week, a camp week, a performance like Bandorama week. It’s so variable that a typical day doesn’t really exist, except that it’s busy. Are we in basketball season yet? Are we in volleyball season yet? Is Dr. Bundy teaching Music Ed classes in addition to trying to do Blue Band? Is Greg [Drane] teaching Music classes? Is it an away week for the whole band? Is it an away week for a pep band? So no two days are never alike, that’s why when they ask me to write my job description and write a daily thing up, how do I start? How do I tackle it, how do I cover it? You have to refine and ask the question, what’s a typical day like in a full-band away week? Then you can refine a little more.

Me: That sounds like so much work!!

Is it hard to see members come into the band and grow and then see them leave again?

Karen: It’s horrible. Horrible. (pause) And it’s me next. You get attached. (She motions at Caleb Rebarchak sitting at his desk) There sits one of them. But he came back. I really get attached, and I have to keep remembering that they leave and they get to come back and do Homecoming. I never have to say goodbye. Someone will say “We’re coming in, this is the last day we’re here, we’re coming in.” I don’t come. I couldn’t come back. It’s hard, it’s really hard. Like, I said goodbye to PJ [Maierhofer], but once she comes back a little bit then it’s ok because Matt [Freeman]’s here. Matt insisted that I go to his [Feature Twirler] audition. He said, “This is my last audition,” and I sat over there and watched his last audition and while [some of the majorettes] cried during his audition, I held my composure. I’m ok with this because Matt’s going to come back. I’m not quite done yet and Matt’s going to come back. It’s really hard. I’m trying not to let them know that it’s me next saying goodbye.

Me: Well you’re still going to come back too.

Karen: Yes, I’ve said Homecoming will always be there. I just know I can always come back and walk in the doors and see everybody. I keep telling Heather [Bean] think about this! Next year when you want me to help with features, I don’t have to worry about the back-end job stuff. I can do whatever you want me to! So that’s how we’re getting past it. It’s nice when they do come back. I always say don’t say goodbye, say I’ll see you later.

Me: That’s a great way of looking at it.

On a lighter note, I saw that you were using shorthand during a meeting. I think that’s so fantastic! When did you learn to do that?

Karen: Oh it’s so antiquated and there are probably a handful of girls left that do it. I had two full years. My junior year you started with one course level and we started with, say, 20 in our class. But it was really a vocational thing, a business vocational thing, when I was still in high school. You got to take Shorthand 2 when you were a senior. By the time we were seniors I think there were maybe… 12 of us stuck with it? Small world, the girl that’s at the School of Music now, the administrative assistant to the director of the School of Music, her sister was in my Shorthand 2 class. I still use it. Dr. Diehl did a lot of dictating. It was before it was easier to sit down at a computer and compose and edit as you went. Dr. Bundy composes and edits as she goes, it’s easier for him. But if he’s in a hurry or he’ll say “Can you take this down?” I’ll still use it. It’s a lost art. I made my daughter take it. Twenty years later I made her take it. She didn’t catch on to it as much and really didn’t like it as much. I made her take level two and it was the same thing. I graduated in ’78 she graduated in ’98, they quit offering it in ’99. I don’t know if they offer it in business school or not.

Me: I feel that with all the new technology, like you said, it’s so much easier to get on the computer.

Karen: I explain it to people it’s like learning a different language. If you can learn Spanish or German or French or whatever. Because it is by sound, you learn shorthand by sound. You spell phonetically.

At this point Karen showed me the notations for different sounds and wrote what my name would be in shorthand

With shorthand you had to take business English. You had to be a really good speller, it made you learn good spelling. Because “gentlemen” became “jm”. A lot of letters written back then with “gentlemen”. It was fine if you could learn “jm” but when you had to go and type it up, did you know how to spell the word “gentlemen”? So we had an intense two years of business English, of proper spelling and such.

Me: My final question for you: Do you have any advice for Blue Band members on how they can make the most of their experience?

Karen: You know I don’t know that I’d have advice for making the most out of it because I feel like with band kids, they already know how to do that. Just being a musician and having the drive to come to college and put that much time into it, you already know that you’re making the most of something. My advice more to band students that I try to give subtly, and I don’t have a lot of kids coming to me for advice, but the good old-fashioned thing, treat others how you want to be treated and you get what you give. To make the most out of something to me goes with that. If you give 100% you’re going to get 100%. If you give niceness to somebody you’re going to get niceness from somebody. If you give happiness around you, you’re going to get it. It’s just nothing more than that. And to make the most out of something… That’s the only thing I tell my daughter over and over again. You get what you give in this life. There’s lots of nice sayings out there, lots of things that really are profound, but for me it’s as simple as that. If you give in your job, then you’re gonna get back! In some way, it may not be monetary. You know I’ve worked hard here and this isn’t the highest paying staff assistant job on this campus. I could’ve gone on, I could have gone a lot of other places and made more money, but that wasn’t what I wanted to get back. I chose to get other things back. Working hard gave me those things, but it’s really really simple to make the most of something by giving.

Me: That is fantastic advice. Thank you so much for your time!

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