Smith sees golden anniversary with Darlington County
After 50 years of maintaining the Darlington County Courthouse and about 20 other county buildings, facilities manager Andrew Smith says he still loves his job. Photo by Samantha Lyles
By Samantha Lyles, Staff Writer, slyles@newsandpress.net
At a recent meeting of Darlington County Council, a resolution was unanimously approved honoring facilities manager Andrew F. Smith for fifty years as a county employee. Council members teased Smith about their expectations for fifty more years of work, but their jokes carried a kernel of possibility: if anyone could manage to double up on their golden anniversary, it’s probably Andrew Smith.
Smith’s path toward that 50-year milestone took a few interesting turns before bringing him home. Born in Society Hill in 1937 to parents Mack and Lottie Smith, Andrew graduated from Rosenwald High School then moved to New York City for a few years until he got a tap on the shoulder from the U.S. government.
“Uncle Sam drafted me into the Army in 1959,” says Smith, noting that his original training was in radio communications – specifically, sending and translating coded messages with a cryptography machine. “I went to school in Seattle, Washington for four weeks and I had to take a secret clearance course in order to operate the crypto machine.”
Smith was bound for Korea, but was none too eager to go to war just yet, so he volunteered for Airborne training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
“There, I made my five perfect jumps, got my blood wings, and stayed at Fort Bragg from 1960 to ’67,” Smith recalls.
Along the way, he married wife Sarah (a Wilmington, NC native) in 1961 and moved back to Darlington after leaving the Army.
“I loved the Airborne and wouldn’t trade it for the world, but my wife didn’t like the jumping,” Smith says.
In March of 1967, he took a job working at the Darlington County Courthouse (built in 1964) as a custodian and applied his military discipline and affinity for training to his new vocation, taking seminars and courses and learning how to best perform his new duties.
“I worked myself up from janitor to custodian director, from there to building maintenance director, then they joined the two jobs together, and now the job is called facilities manager,” says Smith, who now manages the maintenance of the courthouse and 20 other county buildings.
“I’ve learned about everything there is to learn about the county buildings as far as heating and air, carpentry work – you name it. I can do a little bit of everything,” says Smith.
Over the years, Smith has seen the courthouse bow under the weight of age, enduring water damage, a dated heating and cooling system, and crowding as more and more employees and offices packed into the facility. Concerns about security, parking, and overcrowding have sparked a renewed interest in relocating court operations to a new judicial annex, and some have called for the old courthouse to be razed completely so a new multi-purpose facility can take its place.
Aside from his regular daily duties, Smith has taken countless tour groups of curious adults and schoolchildren on basement-to-roof tours of the courthouse, explaining all of the building’s systems, offices, and functions so often he could probably do it in his sleep. Given his unparalleled level of expertise in all things courthouse, he believes there’s still life in the old girl.
“This building can be saved. There’s a lot of good qualities still in this building,” says Smith. “I would like to see a new building, but I wouldn’t want to see this one torn down.”
He says one of the chief hurdles any renovation effort would face is removing the aged heating and cooling system, which runs on a complex system of boilers and water chillers, and replacing it with a modern, efficient electrical system.
“You’d have to cut that system out first, possibly doing it floor by floor, and replacing it with the new system, but it’s going to be hard because this building is so old,” says Smith, noting that cutting into the walls could disturb construction and insulation materials like asbestos, which was commonly used in the 1960s.
While the decision over the courthouse’s fate lies in the hands of Darlington County Council, Smith says he will continue doing everything he can to keep the building as functional and safe as possible. Though Smith is a cancer survivor and has endured painful back surgeries, he hasn’t reached a point yet where he is seriously considering retirement, though he knows that day may eventually come.
“I still feel I can give a hundred percent to the county. When I get to a point where I can’t get up in the morning, or don’t feel I can give that hundred percent…then I will retire,” says Smith.
Looking back over his life, Smith says he’s very proud of raising daughters Angela and Sharon (and doting on his grandchildren and great-grandchildren), serving his country in the Army, and doing his best to keep the daily business of Darlington County running smoothly.
“I’ve enjoyed every bit of it and have no regrets,” says Smith. “If I had to do it all over again, I would. I don’t know what else to say. I’m just happy ever after.”