The Griffon News

Faculty, staff and students packed into the foyer of Potter Hall for a lady they call an icon.

Eighty-three-year old Nadyne Justin retired from Missouri Western after spending more than 27 years with the music department as an administrative assistant.

“It was time,” Justin said. “I have to retire sometime and now when I still feel good and I still have energy and can still plan ahead and create.”

And that’s exactly what she’s going to do.

“Well, I’m going to Florida for a couple weeks,” Justin said. “First, I will help the lady that is coming.”

Justin said she’s excited to make her own schedule and start attending things during the day. Something she wasn’t able to do before.

Justin has been with the institution since 1979 and has watched the transformation of Western.

“Yes, there are changes and sometimes you don’t like them, sometimes they don’t work out and then they get changed, but sometimes they do work out and they just expand,” Justin said. “Changes are all right; you just rise with them.”

And change is exactly what Justin is going to do. She said she is going to reinvent herself, something she’s done many times before.

“I have changed with this job, and I have learned and I have grown, and I have become a lot more self-confident then I was when I came in,” Justin said. “And I guess I’ve learned to just kind of enjoy myself.”

Justin received two plaques, one from the fraternity Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, naming Justin their number one sweetheart. The fraternity got on one knee and sang to her.

“This isn’t the first time the boys have serenaded me and on the knee and everything. That is just amazing to me,” Justin said.

Numerous people had tears in their eyes at Justin’s retirement party; she will truly be missed but not more than she will miss her job and the people.

“This is a very high adrenaline position, and I think I will miss that but mostly,” Justin said. “I think I will miss all the people that I deal with and work with and have come to love and all the kids. They’re in and out of my office all the time, and I will miss that. I’ve loved this institution and the people, the faculty and students.”