After cleaning his life, Scott Jenne helps AHS and students shine

Jan. 30—"Scott is the best janitor we could ask for. Every time my friends and I see him, he always seems to put a smile on our faces. He always asks us how our day was and keeps us positive," said Abilene High School junior Brax Fisher.

"Whenever I would see Scott around the halls, he would make sure to go out of his way and talk to me. I've had many great conversations with Scott that I will always remember. It could be about anything, good or bad, but Scott was always willing to listen. I appreciated that," said Chrisxavier Cease, AHS class of 2020 alum.

Scott Jenne is the head custodian at AHS and has been for 11 years. Some schools have a cool janitor at their school, one that the kids can easily relate to. Some of these custodians may have a bigger impact on a student than their guidance counselors. For AHS, that would be Jenne.

"If I was asking for anything more, I'd be getting greedy," is Jenne's typically response when students greet him.

Childhood

Jenne began his life growing up in a military family. His father was in the Air Force and was married to a Scottish immigrant he had met during World War II. Jenne moved from place to place until his family settled on a small farm in Tescott, Kansas, when he was in the third grade.

Now living on a farm, Jenne's father told him, "I'm going to show what it was like living in the 30s." Scott's chores were taking care of the cows and pigs, and cutting wood for the wood-burning stove to warm up the house when it was cold.

"If it was zero (degrees) outside or upstairs, it was zero in my room," Jenne said.

Growing up, he had learned from his family that a person earns everything they make, and that lesson has stuck with him since. He credits his parents for instilling the value of having a strong work ethic in him.

"My mom grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland, which would be like the New York City of Scotland in the slums, dirt poor, and hard as nails. My dad was a little more caring than my mom was, but you have to understand she grew up with nine brothers, and two sisters, and she was the oldest so she had to help raise her siblings," Jenne said.

Self-Centered

The tough, no-nonsense exterior of his mother exemplified tough love for Scott, which allowed him to grow thick skin and become more resilient. He used the inherited resilience to help him with mistakes he made later in his life, such as his first marriage.

"I'm on my second marriage, and I have been married to Deb for 28 years. In my first marriage, all I was thinking about was me, me, me. I was a typical guy from the 1970s. It was all about me man," he said.

He said the separation from his first wife was hard on his two kids, Dallas and Dillon.

"They knew they were loved, and Charlotte and I did everything needed to support our kids, but splitting a family up is always going to be tough for everyone involved," Jenne said.

Scott's former, "all about me," attitude stemmed mostly from having managerial job titles since he stepped foot into the workforce.

"I was in management at 19 after I graduated high school. I went to work for Jim Cromwell for six months, and then I became a foreman at 19 and had five guys under me, ever since then, I've been in management," Scott said.

Managerial work continued at the Greyhound Farm. After that, he was a construction supervisor at Blue Beacon in Salina for three years in the early 90s. He would then quit that job because of all the heavy traveling required of him.

"I would be gone for three weeks, then back for three days, gone for three weeks, back for three days. It was a never ending cycle."

Alcoholism

Jeanne then went to work at Schwan's for a short stint. Then he worked at Tony's Factory in Salina as a foreman in their maintenance department. Jenne said there were times when his, "hard living," made it difficult for him to exist.

"I drank way too much, I drank like a fish," Jenne said.

Scott would eventually stop drinking when he met his second wife, Debra. Unfortunately, tragedy would strike Jan. 4, 2001. The blow was so lethal that he almost couldn't bounce back from the repercussions of his alcoholism.

"I had a friend I worked with, Lynn Gutner at Schwan's, and at the time, I was coming home from work. Off of I-70 I noticed a truck sitting on the medium. It was Lynn's truck with cops around it. So I pulled over, and they asked me if I could identify a body," he said.

Jenne identified the body as Gutner. There was another body laying in the foot area of the vehicle. The police then asked Jenne if he knew who the passenger was.

"I don't know, maybe he had a ride along. I can check and see."

Jenne called back to his job and ask if Gutner had taken anyone on a ride along with him. "No, he wasn't supposed to have a ride along today," was their response. It turns out the passenger of the vehicle was a random person who had jumped off of the overpass and gone through the windshield, killing Gutner.

"That was a rough time of my life, and I started back to drinking again. I was just trying to get over it. I've been around death a lot, but that one was different because he was a close friend, and that could've been me. I was just seconds behind him, and it just started to eat at my brain," Jenne said.

After his time at Schwan's, Scott then went work at Tony's as the maintenance supervisor. He noted his time working there because physically exhausting, and he wasn't doing much to help his body handle the work conditions. He would end up leaving in 2003.

"I was destroying my body. With all the drinking, long hours, and partying, I couldn't keep up."

He was jumping out of vehicles while drunk, self-medicating with alcohol, and overall walking down a dark path that was easy to follow, but twice as hard to change.

"Kudos to my wife Deb. She put up with me," Jenne said.

Jeanne continued to drink for 14 years, trying to numb the pain of losing his dear friend.

Wake-Up Calls

During that time Scott leaned more into his faith. He claims that he had been a Christian earlier in life with his brother in Montana, but he didn't have the right guidance.

"I just went to a church that didn't know how to cultivate it. I learned on my own. My brother would talk to me and send me a message every day, and that made me start reading the Bible and get more in tune with my religion. I've read the Bible multiple times now, and every time you read it, you learn something new," Jenne said.

Eventually, Scott left Tony's, and started working as a school bus driver.

"At that time they had three retired preachers working there, and they were so good at showing me the gospel," he said.

While working as a school bus driver, Scott would then apply to work in the school as a custodian. He has been on the custodial staff since Jan. 16, 2012.

It took a while for Scott to find his groove at his new job. He didn't quite understand the kids, and quite frankly, he didn't want to deal with all of them. It took a trip to the hospital to change his mind.

"As time went on, my gut blew up, I had Diverticulitis and was laid up in the hospital feeling horrible. I had a colostomy bag, and the second time I got hooked up to it. I decided life was too short to go around pissed off. Because that's what you are when you're drunk," he said.

Diverticulitis occurs when small, bulging pouches form in the lining of the digestive system. Scott more than likely developed his condition from his drinking problem. He fought tooth and nail to kick his habit. Scott attended a few Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, but those weren't effective for him.

"When I went to AA, all I did was sit there and listen to people talk about getting drunk. All that made me want to do was get drunk. I had to find a new outlet, and that ended being the Bible," Jenne said.

Valuable

His fateful hospital visit was eight years ago, and since then, he has grown to become a key member of the Abilene High School staff. Scott Jenne now spends his day making the lives of those around him better. His rapport with the students of Abilene High School couldn't be better, and he has been a staple for the school.

"Mr. Jenne is a valuable member of our staff at Abilene High School. In addition to his custodial duties, he engages and interacts with our students on a daily basis and helps create an environment of student support and concern by all adults in our building," said AHS vice principal Will Burton.

"Scott always made people's day better. He was a very personable guy, and he always made me smile," said Preston Boyd, AHS class of 2019 alum.