Correction: In a previous version of this article, Lonnie Reeder’s age was misstated. Reeder is 90 years old. The Daily Orange regrets this error. In the same article, the time period when Reeder went to school with Jim Brown was unclear. Reeder noted that the went to school around the same time as Brown.

Sitting in a silver pickup truck behind Flint and Day Halls, Lonnie Reeder has watched the world go by. He often goes without notice, a gentle man with eyes the color of a sunset, holding stories within them. His hands are thick and weathered, an illustration of the 90 years he’s been alive.

Today is his birthday.

Born on St. Patrick’s Day, Reeder jokingly tells everyone he is Black Irish. His coworkers at Syracuse University maintenance, where he has worked for 41 years, have planned dinner for him, and he will have three different parties to go to.

Before working at SU, Reeder was a student there. He was born in Alabama in 1924, the youngest of four and the only son to a single mother. They lived in poverty, which prompted young Reeder to get on a train at seven years old and travel to Texas to look for work.

On the train, an older white man, named Mr. Baker, asked him where he was going. When Reeder explained his situation, Mr. Baker took Reeder home, bought him his first pair of shoes and gave him a job.

“I walked myself to death,” Reeder said, beaming as he remembered the first time he wore shoes.

Mr. Baker took Reeder into his family of four children, which gave Reeder the opportunity to go to school. His mother didn’t know where he was, thinking he was dead until four years later, when he finally returned home. He had a little money then and was able to buy things for his family and for himself, including clothes no one else in his neighborhood had.

As a teenager in 1939, Reeder moved to Syracuse. He found work driving a bulldozer on Route 20, and sent $50 every month to the rest of his family in Alabama. One day while working, another employee told him he needed to go to college.

Reeder remembered his reply: “I already know a lot about books and things.” But he agreed to go after finishing one year at Corcoran High School before he could be admitted as an SU student. He said the university was much different then.

“When I went to school, it was $700 a year.” Reeder said, also noting that he went to school around the same time as record-setting football player Jim Brown.

Reeder said racial tension existed on the campus back when he was a student; he remembers when spectators didn’t want Brown to play at games. He also recollected a time when he was denied food at a restaurant in Cicero.

“I was born in the Jim Crow times. The blacks had to be in a different section from the whites.” Reeder said. “The university had to pass a lot of laws against segregation. Downtown they would never pass the laws. The school did more than the city did.”

After graduating from SU, Reeder continued to pick up odd jobs, including work as a mortician, before he eventually got a job at the university in its maintenance department.

Reeder’s office now is located in Day Hall, brimming with cords, boxes of bulbs and jars of screws, nuts and bolts. He likes using Jiffy jars, his favorite type of peanut butter, for storage but uses emptied bean cans too.

He smiles at students when they walk by. Students in Flint and Day have make him posters in the past, thanking him for all he has done.

He regularly helps students around campus, and will offer his pickup truck to anyone who needs help moving their belongings. He goes around fixing various things, from lights to washing machines.

“Lonnie is one of a kind. Someone you meet once in a lifetime,” said Tomi Crowell, a worker in maintenance, and one of Reeder’s friends. “He’s just an open, down-to-the-earth kind of a guy. Heart of gold.”

Another maintenance worker at SU, Rusty Tassini, has known Reeder for four years, and says always been an advocate and volunteer for the Syracuse community.

“He’ll help local food pantries by delivering for them. He uses his pickup truck, he never accepts any money for it,” Tassini said. “He helps people all over the city. It’s just his nature. He’ll hear somebody has a problem with something and he’ll be there to help,”

These are just the echoes of a testament from the rest of the community. In 2006, SU’s Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Committee awarded Reeder with the Unsung Heroes Award.

“Lonnie has been the same person for the four years I’ve known him,” Tassini said. “He’s the first to volunteer. When we would have shovel events, he was out there with a shovel when we needed volunteers.”

Reeder credits his work ethic to his mother, who he was very close to.

“My mother always taught me never to tell somebody something that you can’t do. Never promise nothing you can’t do,” he said.

While many people think Reeder should retire, he said he’d rather work because he enjoys what he does.

“He certainly never made an excuse about his age,” Tassini continued. “He can still outwork anybody I know.”

While 90 is a milestone age, Reeder shows no signs of slowing down.

Tomorrow, when the celebrations are over, he will be back at his usual spot, ready for work.

Published on March 17, 2014 at 1:29 am

Contact Elaina: ekcrocke@syr.edu