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LAST STOP: Security guard retires a second time — at 95
AP
Photo
In this April 21, 2011 photo, 95-year-old Ernest "Boonie" Ankrum stands at a gate at the Holophane facility in Newark, Ohio. Ankrum is retiring from his job as a gate guard.
Columbus Dispatch
NEWARK, Ohio
Less than a year after Ernest “Boonie” Ankrum’s first retirement, a friend asked whether he wanted to try his hand as a security guard. That was 34 years ago.
The 95-year-old Securitas employee put on his badge for the last time Thursday as a gate guard at the Holophane plant on McKinley Avenue in Newark. Ankrum’s latest retirement marks the end of an era at the plant, where workers and company officials gathered recently to throw him a combined birthday and retirement party.
The tall and still-active Ankrum said he hadn’t considered retiring again until he heard that the company was switching to an automated gate system that would eliminate his position. He could have kept working for the security company, he said, but leaving Holophane was his cue to call it quits.
Ankrum, of St. Louisville, said he wasn’t sure he’d like being a security guard when he started. But not long after he was assigned to the plant, he decided to stick it out.
“It was the people,” he said. “They’re a great bunch of people here. We’re all friendly with each other.”
Born in Hebron in 1916, Ankrum was reared in Newark. At age 12, he began working full time at his brother-in-law’s dairy and delivery business, making 50 cents a week.
He later spent time with the Civilian Conservation Corps in Zanesville, planting trees and helping area farmers with erosion control. He also worked at other Newark businesses, including Wehrle Stove Co. and Owens Corning. He retired in 1976 after 28 years as a truck driver for B&L Motor Freight.
Ankrum spent his last day at the factory Thursday, telling stories and laughing with employees. He recalled losing his brakes coming out of the mountains in New York on the return leg of his first truck-driving haul. “I don’t know why I ever drove a truck after that,” he said.
He had a smile and handshake for the employees who came through the guardhouse Thursday, all of whom he knows by first name and all of whom know him only as “Boonie.”
He said he got the nickname as a child, when he and a group of friends used to pick on a man who made brooms on Burt Avenue in Newark.
One day, the man chased down Ankrum and his friends, and broke Ankrum’s sled out of anger. After that, his friends started calling him Broomstick, and then Broomy, which became Boonie and stuck.
Bob Pierce, receiving group leader at the plant, said Ankrum is a Holophane fixture. “I’ve never known Boonie not to be here,” he said. “He wouldn’t be leaving now if not for this automated system.”
Ankrum’s workplace has been converted mostly to warehouse space, and plant manager Steve Hummel said he couldn’t justify the cost of security guards. Still, he was sad to lose Ankrum, who has been like a grandfather to employees and delivery drivers.
“He’s quite a character,” Hummel said. “We’re all going to miss him.”
Asked what he will do next, Ankrum said he would putter in his garden and mow his 71/2-acre lawn when he wasn’t knocking golf balls into the field behind his house.
His three children still live in the area, he said, and their company and that of his girlfriend (whom he describes only as “younger”) will keep him occupied.
His secret to good health is simple: keeping busy.
“I haven’t had a job I didn’t like,” Ankrum said. “I never really considered retirement. Being around people is the only thing I’ve ever known.”