After 30 years of custodial service, Bradley Brandt retires from HHS

If those halls could talk, they might have a thing or two—all of it good—to say about custodian Bradley Brandt.

The well-liked staff member at Huntsville High School (HHS) retired this year after 30 years of service at the school. He’s watched a lot of students come and go. Teachers and staff members, too.

He says he’s going to miss them. “At times I feel sad, sometimes I start to cry because I’ve got to know them… it’s unbelievable. It brings back a lot of memories, this job.”

When he left high school himself, Brandt worked at Arrowhead Provincial Park for a couple of months, and then spent nine years at Hidden Valley. He’s been at HHS ever since.

Among his favourite memories are some staff hijinx, including this one: “I would be joking around with the water, trying to get them wet. And then they’d all gang up on me. We had a big yellow bucket filled with water and they all tried to put me in the bucket. They got my legs in there,” he says with a laugh.

Fellow custodian, Ivan Godfrey, says that Brandt, “Got along well with all the staff and students. He loved sneaking up on his co-workers on a regular basis and testing our nerves. After 7500 days of cleaning he was getting a little tired of cleaning the last couple years, but he stuck it out with some belly aching.”

Godfrey adds his congratulations and wishes for a happy retirement.

Members of the Hoya Robotics team and their robot help Bradley Brandt with some sweeping on his last shift (Photo: @hhs4152 / Twitter)

Current HHS principal, Alison Turnbull, remembers Brandt fondly from her years as the school’s VP from 2006 to 2010. “When I arrived [as principal in 2018], Bradley was just as I remembered. He always has a keen interest in the staff and students of HHS. He is a fantastic story teller, who is excited about everything that happens in the school! So, each night when Bradley came to clean up in the main office, I could count on him to fill me in on everything I had missed over the last eight years.”

Turnbull says Brandt “speaks with great pride when he talks about the staff, the students and the programs at HHS. He has always considered the school his home away from home and takes pride in his work.”

Brandt’s last shift at the school was February 13. In his final days before retirement, he dropped the puck at a student versus staff hockey game and had the Hoya Robotics robot give him a hand with some sweeping. But mostly, he did what he always had, helping to ensure that the school was clean and tidy.

Bradley Brandt behind the bench of the staff team for the HHS students vs teachers game on February 8, 2019

And now, he’ll be turning that attention elsewhere. Brandt says he’s looking forward to doing some camping, and he loves to garden. And he’s got an ’83 Pontiac Trans Am that he’s going to spend some time tinkering with. “I can work on it more now than I did before.”

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