The Town of Wrightsville Beach celebrated two employees last week during its annual holiday lunch who have served the town for a quarter of a century, building community relationships and creating a sense of fellowship. Sylvia Holleman and William Bailey say it’s the community, not the money, that keeps them invested in their jobs.
Holleman, town clerk, and Bailey, facilities maintenance supervisor, both live in Brunswick County but have dedicated most of their professional lives to working for Wrightsville Beach.
“We love this town,” Holleman said. “We don’t live here, but we feel like we’re a part of it.”
Both employees noted that they’ve taken ownership over their work here.
Bailey started as the lowest paid employee in the town before moving up to the position of street crew leader in less than two years. Over the course of his 25 years on staff, he has worked on a variety of projects including collecting trash, pouring cement for the John Nesbitt Loop, cleaning bathrooms, installing walls and mapping the town’s storm drainage system.
“When I first started, everybody in the department started in sanitation,” Bailey said. “The idea was that if you could last 30 days on a trash truck, you’d stick it out.”
Although Holleman also works for the town, she has a very different role. As town clerk, she works closely with the board and oversees any support they need, writing minutes, resolutions and ordinances. In essence, she said, her work is all for the residents of Wrightsville Beach.
“I do what the residents want, because I work for them. Over the years they’ve become like family,” Holleman said. “They’d do anything for us.”
Holleman said there are a handful of specific residents who she can call for help at any time, and Bailey remembered when residents supported him as his mother’s health was failing.
These relationships and the friendships are what both Holleman and Bailey agreed makes their jobs enjoyable. They also reminisced about the unity among town employees in years past when all departments shared a single building.
“When we first came, it was more intimate,” Holleman said. “We’d have lunch together. You knew everybody’s name and there was a sense of fellowship.”
Since that time, the town has grown significantly, and now most departments have their own buildings. Because of this, Holleman and Bailey don’t see as much of each other, but Holleman said she still calls Bailey whenever her door sticks and needs repairing.
In the midst of the change they’ve seen, the two employees said they work hard to continue to adjust to the changes around them.
“I think one of the keys is to be flexible, because people come in with ideas and want to conquer the world,” Holleman said. “You can’t get stuck in the idea of keeping things how they’ve always been.”
Both employees said that despite the many changes, they try to keep a consistently good work ethic and inspire those around them to put emphasis on customer service and doing every job right the first time.
“We are a collection of people who take pride in this town and in what we do,” Bailey said.
