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Bill Ratliff with Grounds Maintenance employees

NAME: Bill Ratliff

OCCUPATION: Grounds Supervisor, Grounds Maintenance

MSU is known as one of the most beautiful college campuses in the nation. Bill Ratliff spends his days working to keep it that way.

Ratliff, a campus employee for 19 years, is supervisor of 13 full-time and 25 to 30 part-time student employees in Grounds Maintenance who constantly work to make campus ready each day for students.

Cleaning up after the Sept. 2 football game presented a unique challenge to prepare campus for "business as usual" only hours after the game. Under Ratliff's direction, six teams of seven or eight workers, including an office staff member, started work at 3 a.m. Friday morning and had campus looking great by 6:30 a.m. Considering that an average game produces 60 to 70 cubic yards of compressed garbage, that's no small task.

With a campus spanning more than 5,000 acres and a student population topping 40,000, campus maintenance is required around-the-clock.

PHOTO BY BRUCE FOX