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By Grant Stewart
Danny DeRamus is the director of physical resources for the University. DeRamus has been a part of the physical resources department since 1982, when he started working on the grounds crew for Harding’s first baseball field and did electrical work for the Benson Auditorium during its construction. DeRamus graduated from Harding in 1987, with a degree in general studies, after taking a nearly six-year break following his junior year to work and get married. As the director of physical resources, DeRamus drives himself and his department according to the mission of serving the Harding community.
My favorite project that we did was probably when we remodeled Sears Hall. It was the first one that I really took over, and we ran the whole project out of our department. We worked and worked and worked on it, and we even finished two weeks early. Dr. Burks was president then, and that was when "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" was popular, so I got T shirts for everyone and talked the Harding bus driver into parking the bus in front of the building. We had a sound system. Those involved in the deans’ office and a bunch of people gathered around. We counted down and yelled, “Move that bus!” and everyone cheered. It was a really exciting, really fun way to finish.
This summer probably held the most large projects we’ve had at one time since I’ve been here. We have had to work through all kinds of situations, like delays related to supply chain issues. We’re still waiting for some parts, but we have to work to meet expectations. We knew we had to finish the projects, and we focused on that. That’s kept us together, and we are continuing to finish some projects and begin some new ones as well.
I’ve always tried to make sure that everyone in this building understands that we are a service-oriented organization. We don’t teach, though there are lessons to learn. We don’t speak in front of people, but everything we do speaks to everyone who comes on campus. Sometimes you have to ask yourself, “Where do you get your motivation to do the same thing over and over again?” We have to remember that we are created by God to serve and that we are here to serve the people — faculty, students, staff, visitors — everyone that comes on this campus. We just continue to push that. We do get some satisfaction from seeing buildings built and projects finished, but the biggest thing is that even though we are tired at the end of some of these projects, we know we served to the best of our ability and got it done.
