Staple of the Gilman Community, Mr. Ray, Retires

After being a staple of the Gilman athletics community for over four decades, the beloved Mr. Ray Millis has decided to retire from his position as Equipment Manager. Mr. Ray joined the Gilman community on January 11, 1981, while still working a part-time job as a construction worker. Despite working another job, his heart was fully invested in Gilman the moment he joined the community, and he accepted a full-time position at Gilman as soon as he could. Since receiving the full-time job in the athletics department, he hasn’t turned back and has cherished every moment he spends here.

Working the cage (the space in the athletics building with all the jerseys, laundry machines, towels, and more) is not a traditional job at Gilman, but it is a vital and thankless job. Any time that Mr. Ray “missed” on the front part of the day, he made up for it on the back end, working from 2:00 PM to 10:00 PM every weekday. If that wasn’t enough work, Mr. Ray explained that he had to come in on most weekends to supervise athletic events, complete managerial duties, and hand out jerseys. He explained that his friends and Gilman students would always “laugh and say to me: do you ever come home?” 

While at Gilman, jobs that fall under his duty as equipment manager include: doing the laundry, taking inventory of clothes, preparing all of the fields for games, and checking the locker rooms. Naturally, after being so heavily involved in the Gilman sports community, I had to ask Mr. Ray who he thought was the best athlete to ever come through Gilman? To this, he replied: “Well, we had a lot of great athletes. There was Darius Jennings ‘11, Victor Avermury ‘03, Ryan Boyle ‘00, Brandon Copeland ‘09, Edward Trusty ‘91, and some others too.” After doing this thankless, necessary work for our community for 44 years, Mr. Ray decided to retire because he was “getting too old and his body was aching.”

Accordingly, the thing Mr. Ray is looking most forward to during retirement is relaxing and enjoying life. However, he doesn’t plan to stay off his feet for long. Mr. Ray explained that he’s spoken to alumni and is hoping to get back to less labor-intensive work at some point in the future. Despite moving on to new work, Mr. Ray made it clear that Gilman is still a community he deeply values and loves. He vocalized this well by explaining, “They [the memories] are all good. I never had a bad day; every day was good.”