Mrs. Puckett is a front-office secretary and has been working with JAHS for 13 years.
Q: What’s your name and position at Jonathan Alder High School?
A: My name is Lisa Puckett and I am the building secretary.
Q: How long have you been working at Jonathan Alder High School?
A: I have been at the high school since August of 2012. (13 years)
Q: Did you start working here as a secretary or?
A: I did. So, I was the secretary here at the high school. I was filling in for Mrs. Vawter and then I took over for her when she left.
Q: Where did you go to school?
A: Westerville North.
Q: How far is that school from here?
A: Oh, probably about 30 minutes.
Q: What’s your favorite activity you do in the office?
A: My favorite thing is interacting with the staff and the students and parents. I just like interacting with all the people.
Q: What made you choose a secretary? Was that like the only position that was open?
A: I was just asked to come and do it and so I did it. So, they were looking and somebody reached out to me and I said, yeah, I’ll be happy to sub for a while for you guys.
Q: What’s your favorite hobby to do outside of school?
A: So, outside of school, I enjoy taking walks, hiking, going out to new restaurants.
Q: What’s your big thing like one, two, maybe three responsibilities that you deal with every day?
A: So, I take care of all student records. I handle everything that Mr. Hayes or Mr. Clark needs me to do for them. I process work permits, take phone calls, do student fees, and assign lockers.
Q: If you could change one thing about your job, what would it be?
A: I really don’t know. It depends on the day. Some days there’s more things going on than others, but overall, I don’t know that there’s much that I would change.
Q: Do you think you guys need more office staff or do you think you have enough people?
A: Since adding an attendance person, that has helped a lot. Right now, I think we are pretty good with the three people that work together.
Q: Have you seen a lot of sickness going around the school at the start of this year?
A: We’ve had a lot of sickness this year with staff and students.
Q: What was your original career plan when you graduated from, I’m guessing, Westerville?
A: It was being a special education teacher, and I did go to college, and then I kind of changed my path and did early childhood. And I taught pre-K for about five years.
Q: Have you had any summer jobs like a small job working somewhere like McDonald’s or something just to get money in high school?
A: When I was in high school, I babysat and I also worked at Pizza Hut and a place called County Seat, which was a jean store back in the day.
Q: If you could add on to the high school, what would you add?
A: I think I would add on a home-ec department and an auditorium for the musicals, for concerts, for that kind of thing.
Q: What’s your favorite memory that you have in all your years and all that of working for Alder?
A: One of my favorite memories is of when I first started, we had a lunch group with the admin team and the secretaries that we would make sure we ate together a couple times a week. And my other favorite memory was when I was prom advisor for three years.
Q: What do you do in the summer?
A: I work, I’m a year-round employee, so I worked all summer, but we did take a vacation up to the Smoky Mountains.
Q: If you could visit one place for vacation, either next summer during spring break or something like that, what would you visit?
A: My go-to is always Tennessee, but I probably, if I can mix it up, I might go up to Maine and Vermont. But anybody that knows me knows I go to Tennessee all the time.
Q: Have you ever wanted or have you ever gone to California or any place like over on the West Coast?
A: The furthest that I’ve been is Texas.
Q: Were you born in Ohio then?
A: Yes.
Q: What do you spend most of your time at Alder doing as secretary? Is it like talking to people or is it like doing paperwork?
A: It’s a lot of different things. It’s from filing reports to interacting with staff, students, and parents, interacting with community members, I do a lot of record keeping, and processing paperwork for students.
Q: Why did you decide to work at the high school as a secretary and not like at Westerville or somewhere else?
A: This is because my kids went here and I have friends here and they reached out to me.
Q: So you have friends who work here?
A: Yeah, so some friends reached out when they were needing somebody and the principal that was here at the time asked me if I could come and help.
Q: What’s your favorite, like who or what’s your favorite musician group or musician and what song of theirs is your favorite?
A: I like all genres of music, so I don’t really have a favorite. Like I like all genres from country to rock to Christian. Yeah, I like all of them, so I don’t really have a favorite because I like them all.
Q: Do you have a favorite book, podcast, or show that you like to listen to?
A: I like mysteries. Again, I’m kind of all over the place. I kind of whatever I’m in the mood for, that’s what I listen to for the day.
Q: How busy do you get as a secretary? Is it like pretty much always working?
A: It stays steady, so pretty steady. Busy all the time. There are down times when student exams are happening and that kind of stuff. It’s a little bit less hectic because everybody’s either taking the test or they’re gone for the day, but we’re pretty steady.
Q: What’s your least and most favorite part of your job?
A: My most favorite part is once again interacting. I love interacting with the students and the staff and the parents. That just makes my job so fun. My least favorite, I really don’t know that there’s anything that I hate, that I hate or dislike doing. There’s just things that you like doing better, so I wouldn’t say there’s anything on that list that’s like, oh, I hate to do.
Q: What was your big career plan when you were just in middle school or other grades around that?
A: So I always knew I wanted to be in education, but I also always knew that I wanted to be a mom and a wife. So mom and wife were really high up there, but I wanted to also be in the education field.
Q: Would you be a substitute teacher if you had the option of being one, or would you stay a secretary?
A: Oh, I would do what I’m doing. I would stay in the administrative area.
Q: If you could have one career suggestion to people, what would it be and why?
A: I think the most important thing is that you find something that you love, and if you love doing your job and you love what you’re doing, even on hard days, it’ll still be a good day, and that’s all because you love what you’re doing.
Q: If you couldn’t go into the education field, what other job would you have gone out and tried to get?
A: Probably just another administrative assistant job, just in a different area.
