Campbell’s longest-serving social worker retires

By Sarah Watson

Published: June 30, 2008

RUSTBURG — Delores King didn’t just manage the Campbell County Social Services offices. She mopped floors, outlined budgets and handled everything to do with department computers.

So with King’s retirement Monday after 44 years of work, social services managers said it will take an army of people to replace her and her vast institutional knowledge of the department.

“She was the only one that can fix a commode and then fix a computer in the same hour,” social work supervisor Susan Jones said at King’s retirement party held Monday in the basement of the county’s historic courthouse in Rustburg.

Department supervisors said she was the longest-serving social services employee in the county’s history.

Less than a month after graduating from Rustburg High School in 1964, King took a job with the Campbell County Social Services department as a clerk and gradually moved her way to office manager. She was the sixth employee hired in the department, which now has more than 75, she said.

At that time, the county did not have a Juvenile and Domestic court. So social workers would file pre-trial motions and cases would be heard in the general court, King said. The department was housed in four small rooms directly under the historic county courthouse.

King even occasionally went with social workers to bring children home from the hospital or to deliver children to foster homes.

The types of cases the department handles hasn’t changed, King said. “The need is just greater. There are more people and the cost of living has gotten so much higher,” causing more to seek aid from the county.

Several dozen Campbell County employees from most major departments were at King’s retirement party, along with colleagues from other social services agencies throughout the area.
King said just a few short words.

She said she has no concrete plans in retirement other than spending as much time as possible with her five grandchildren and taking them on trips.

In addition to her work with the department, King was once the captain of the Rustburg rescue squad and would even go on calls during the day, Campbell County Social Services department director Rick Verilla said. Her paramedic skills came in handy whenever someone was sick or injured in the office.

King was also known for her handy skills. She kept a toolbox in her office, Jones said, and during renovations, she would manage the work and move all the computer equipment in the office.

There were no computers when King began with the county and it wasn’t until the 1990s when the department was fully computerized, she said. Through those years, King learned countless computer skills on her own and used that information to help those in the department.

“Delores is really kind of the backbone of the department,” Verilla said. “She’s been the face of Social Services for 44 years.”