City's event honors its own

SAN ANGELO, Texas From cutting trees and mowing grass to building gazebos and fixing sprinklers, San Angeloan David Rodriguez has done it all in his 35 years working with the city and has no intention of retiring.

I love my job, every day its different, said Rodriguez, crew leader for the Parks Department, after a ceremony Thursday at the McNease Convention Center that honored 146 public servants for their loyalty to San Angelo.

The annual Service Awards Presentation celebrated employees who spent five to 35 years with the city, which made a cumulative total of 1,830 years of experience.

Congratulations to the guys in the trenches, to the supervisors, said Councilman Don Vardeman, who spent more than 30 years working for the city before his retirement. Thank you. I really appreciate it.

Rodriguez, 58, began working for the city in 1978.

Rodriguez received a job offer from the city and the state, but he chose the city because it paid employees once every two weeks as opposed to monthly by the state, said Operations Director Shane Kelton with a laugh.

In more than three decades with the city, Rodriguez said things have changed somewhat.

He said he laughs when younger staffers complain about weed eating, because it is so much easier than it was in the 1970s. At that time, he said, parks staff would use a tool called yo-yos, which was like a manual trimmer.

Its gotten better, with the new technology, Rodriguez said. Those days are gone.

Back then, he said, staff also would mow the city parks with a push mower, and it would take all day.

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City's event honors its own