Students wear cowboy hats to honor Robert Banik, longtime Guntown Middle School custodian
Sep. 8—GUNTOWN — Students and teachers at Guntown Middle School wore cowboy hats, Tuesday, to honor a longtime maintenance worker who died last week.
Roughly half of the school's sixth through eighth grade students wore cowboy hats in honor of Robert Banik, who donned a cowboy hat every day on the job, Guntown Middle School principal Dr. Karen Letson said.
Banik died on Sept. 3 at North Mississippi Medical Center.
Banik, who was set to retire in December, worked for 20 years as one of the school's two custodians. Those who knew him said he went far above and beyond the requirements of the job.
The 65-year-old maintenance worker was witty and easygoing. He preferred to communicate by walkie talkie rather than his cellphone. With no qualms, he'd catch and release mice, squirrels or snakes that had found their way inside back into the wild. Banik would bring candy to share with students — from chocolate to butterscotch or peppermints. He always knew which students liked what sweets; if he didn't have candy, he'd slip them a dollar or two.
"He gave I don't know how many dollar bills out to kids, or would just buy them a drink out of the snack store," Letson said.
Banik arrived at school by 5:30 a.m. each day, giving Letson "morning briefings" detailing what he'd already done that morning as he walked her into the building. He never left for the day until after the school buses pulled away from campus.
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Jennifer Dickerson, the school's other custodian and Banik's closest work partner, said Banik became her best friend during the 10 years she worked with him.
"When I started here, they called him 'The Dancing Cowboy,'" Dickerson said, saying a parent gave him the nickname because of the way he directed car rider traffic.
Letson, who knew Banik for 15 years, said he went 80 miles per hour on every project. Everything he did was at a rapid clip, even while he was jokingly complaining about the task at hand.
"If I told him to go do something, he'd pass every teacher on the way and tell them I asked him to do this, but then in 10 minutes he'd have it done," Letson said. "I think sometimes he just wanted to tell what he was doing."
Banik was known to drop by the school on holidays or weekends, just to check in on it. Sometimes on Sundays, he'd get a head start mowing.
"He was a worker," Dickerson said. "He was Johnny-on-the-spot, whatever you needed done. Everybody would say 'You don't have to do it right now, Mr. Banik,' but he was one of those if he didn't do it right then, he would get on something else and then forget."
Letson and Dickerson agree the funniest story from Banik's time as custodian happened several years ago when he drove a riding lawn mower over a fire cracker that had landed on the school's football field after the city's annual Fourth of July celebration, but hadn't gone off.
The firework exploded upon impact with the blades and jolted the mower. Banik jumped off and walked into the building, still covering his ears, ready to share his latest amusing tale with coworkers.
Abby Mauney, a sixth through eighth grade gifted teacher who knew Banik for nine years, said if she or another teacher needed anything, they didn't have to ask. Banik always volunteered to help.
"He was more like a dad, all these life lessons he taught me," Mauney said. Money management was the biggest of those lessons.
She said Banik advised people he knew to never finance anything they bought. Instead, he recommended they save their money and pay in cash.
"He always walked around with a wad of money," Mauney said. "He would give kids money, just, 'Here's you a dollar,' in passing. He had a heart of gold."
And if a child needed change in the lunchroom, they knew who to call.
Banik's favorite hobby was buying and selling ... well, anything. He and his wife, Deborah, would go to yard sales and flea markets every Saturday, Letson said.
Prior to his death, he had recently sold a couple of cars from the early 1900s and was constantly trading or selling everything from iron skillets and beds to umbrellas and car tags.
"If you told him you wanted something, he would find it," Letson said.
More than anything, Banik was a people person, through and through. He'd sit and talk to teachers for as long as they would listen, and he treated every student with love and respect.
Letson said a memorial plaque for Banik will be placed in the school's front office, and she's brainstorming ideas for a more permanent tribute to him.
"If there was an embodiment of Guntown Middle School, it would be Robert Banik," Letson said.
