A group of Lake State Alumni and staff gathered at Moloney’s Alley on Friday, but there was a bit of a different tone to the gathering this time, and the arrival of the night’s guest of honor made it clear. The alumni meeting was also the last one for Bill Whitman, who left Lake State’s campus this Wednesday, after having served as LSSU’s Director of Public Safety since 2004. The atmosphere was jovial, but had an undertone, and it was obvious that the people there would be sad to see this man leaving.

When asked why it was he decided to leave, Whitman explained that his decision was for family reasons, specifically his youngest daughter. Whitman’s two daughters live with his ex-wife in Pennsylvania, and as he explains, though he wanted his youngest to move here with him, the arrangements never worked out. “I was back [in Pennsylvania] this summer, for vacation, and driving back from a softball tournament of hers, she and I were talking, and she said ‘Dad, it doesn’t seem like I’m going to be able to move out there with you’. I said ‘It’s alright, sweetheart, I tried,’ and she said ‘No, I understand, but – I need you back… I really need you back.’” As Whitman explained – “That was it”. He also said that she had been having some troubles with school the previous year, and so he knew that he was going to have to return.

Whitman told her that it might take some time for him to find a job back near Philadelphia where his daughters live, but that he was going to do it, and the opportunity came as if by fate itself on his trip home. “I came back that Sunday, July 8th, stopped at a convenience store, got a big cup of coffee, and I picked up the Sunday Philadelphia Enquirer, then came back to the Soo, got back late that night, went back to work, and totally forgot about the paper. It wasn’t until Thursday that I sat down, thought ‘hey, I’ll look at the paper’, and I saw an ad for a school district in Delaware County, looking for someone to head up the school police department.” The school district in question turned out to be only 40 minutes from where his daughters live.

He applied for and received the job all within the span of a few hours, and the plans were all set up. “I wasn’t looking to leave”, he reiterated – “It was really just a family thing.”

Whitman’s oldest daughter, who is 23, graduated college in that area last year and is a volleyball coach at her school, and his youngest, 15, is still attending high school in that area.

Whitman said on Monday that the biggest thing he is going to miss about working here is the people, and the area around here, which he says he loves. “I love the camping, the hiking, just getting on my bike and taking off, but what I really am going to miss is the people – just really good people… I came here a little over three years ago, and the people were very accepting, took me in… I’m really going to miss everyone here.” He also specifically mentions his group of friends, jokingly called the “Problem Solving Group”, which met at various places around the area, what he again calls “a really good group of people”. He goes on to list the various organizations he has worked with during his stay, his church, and says “This is a place I really would have loved to have been able to raise my daughters… this is just a good place, with really good people.”

He also mentioned that he would really like to see the full emergency response plan program finished when he is gone, and to finish the training that was started during his stay. The second thing me mentioned was the conversion of the LSSU Public Safety Department into a fully commissioned department, and says it is not relative to the crime rate – which he says people come back to often – but a matter of providing the best possible service to the people here, as well as opportunities for grants and programs that are unavailable to the University as it is. Which, he says, considering the fact that LSSU has one of the top Criminal Justice programs in the state “Why wouldn’t we want to have the best possible experience for the students doing their internships with us? That’s what has never really made sense to me, and that has been my real impetus behind it.”

“I don’t know of any other reason that could have taken me away from here, other than my daughters,” Whitman said on Monday. “There’s something genuinely good about the people here.”

“I just want to thank everybody,” he said finally, “Students, Faculty… it was… a tremendous opportunity.”

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