The Mockingbird Elementary custodian that’s sweeping the school off its feet
Miller Wilson is an early riser. The 54-year-old wakes up at 4:30 a.m. every morning, naturally. He doesn’t need alarms or an extra nudge to get going. The Oak Cliff native travels into Lakewood early. He’s one of the first people to enter Mockingbird Elementary at 5:30 a.m.
He turns off the alarms, he opens up all the doors and turns on all the lights. He runs through his usual checklist, and if he was particularly productive the evening before, he has less to check, clean or prep for.
When he first started, he worked the night shift. Now, by his third year on the campus, he’s been well acquainted with the day shift – a change that opened the door to a new kind of experience for Wilson.
He now gets to greet the students in the mornings, run into parents at drop-off and chat with faculty and staff.
Photography by Cat Iler
The students affectionately call him “Mr. Miller,” something that caught on and left his adult peers calling him the same.
His daily stroll through the campus makes him seem like quite the celebrity. Around each corner is another child, ready to bestow upon him an eager high-five or a fist bump – a few end with finger explosions from both parties.
Wilson walks throughout the school’s halls, poking his head into classrooms and raising his eyebrows as he peers into windows. Each silent invitation to engage is responded to with enthusiasm from the students, who wave and whisper hellos in between classroom instruction.
Wilson lightly jogs up to a classroom door, slowly opening it to reveal a small group of students. Ms. Selee’s DeafEd class. The children have created a sign name for Wilson, a special sign used to identify a person. The class begins signing the letter ‘M’ before motioning their hands from their foreheads to the back of their heads, replicating Wilson’s signature cornrows.
Wilson especially enjoys this bunch, as they have been teaching him sign language.
From 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., you can find Wilson on lunchroom duty. In between tidying up the space, he takes a seat and has lunch with the students, continuing their sign language lessons or even catching up with one student in particular, his 6-year-old grandson.
In November, a trip to his office door would reveal a plethora of crayon-drawn messages and letters thanking him for his work during custodian appreciation day. This past holiday season, he received gifts and praise from parents who have heard their students come home with stories and praise for the custodian.
“I appreciate them and they appreciate me,” Wilson says. “I’m blessed.”
Before this, Wilson worked at Mary Kay for six years. For him, being around children so often has changed his outlook on life. His time at the school has taught him “patience,” “understanding,” and the importance of “slowing down.”
“This school’s changed me,” he says. “They don’t look at me just like a custodian, they look at me as a person.”
