For Never Quit winner, patching a pothole is a labor of love

Sometimes a pothole isn’t just a pothole.

To Kenton Perry, a crew chief for pothole patching in Oklahoma City, filling a pothole is a labor of love. It’s what makes him proud to be a public service worker and what gives meaning to his long, 12-hour shifts, in which he’s responsible for the safety of his co-workers and the public. Most importantly for him, it’s how he makes his community better.

“I tell myself every day, you know, I was telling my crew, we’re going to have a good day today,” says Perry, a member of AFSCME Local 2406. “Because no matter what, we are helping somebody else.”

For his service to his community, Perry is a winner of our union’s Never Quit Service Award. The award recognizes public service workers who go above and beyond the call of duty to make their communities better.

Perry and his crew work all over the northwest side of Oklahoma City. He’s responsible for the truck, the work getting done and keeping everyone safe.

“It’s a little challenging sometimes trying to figure out how we’re going to do what we need to do,” Perry says. “You don’t really think about it, but there’s a lot of traffic, and being able to control it and being able to know how to control it is vitally important to what we do.”

Perry is also on emergency response. He and his co-workers operate the snowplows on the roads. In any kind of emergency, he says, they’re the ones who get called.

“Sometimes it can be scary when you’re dealing with the aftermath of a tornado,” he says. “But at the end of the day, if you made people’s lives a little bit easier, it’s a bonus, knowing that I’m making a difference.”

Despite the challenges, Perry takes great pride in the work he does.

“I love being able to drive around and say, ‘I did that pothole,’ you know, and it’s a nice pothole,” he says. “It’s not a speed bump or something, you know, it’s done the way the city wants it done.”