Explosives can't erase affection ex-workers have for hotel

Rich Suwanski

Nov. 8, 2009 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- Executive Inn Rivermont employees said teamwork, a sense of family among staff and pride helped drive the once-vast and bustling hotel and convention center for 31 years.

Management did everything in its power to make the Big E first-class, but it still needed the staff's energy and willingness to pull together and deliver the service that made guests want to return.

By all accounts, it was an overwhelming success.

"As the years progressed and the place needed renovation, we could always overcome that with our service," said Jan Kinsey, who held a variety of managerial positions there.

"Many of the employees were making minimum wage, or a little better, and there were some benefits, but they weren't great, and yet the longevity of the staff was amazing. Everyone worked together."

After this morning's implosion, the Executive Inn will only be a memory, although several former employees hope to get a brick as a keepsake.

Trish Burden, a 23-year employee who started there bussing tables but ended up as human resources manager, said she will always remember the Christmas parties that the first owner Bob Green arranged.

"We brought our kids, and he gave us gifts, and Santa Claus always came," she said.

Burden said it wasn't the pay that kept her there, but the people, both fellow employees and guests who became regulars. She even met her husband Jonathan there.

"I've got lifelong friends from the 'E,' " she said. "But it was sad when I went to the (contents liquidation) sale. The plants in the Patio (dining room) were all brown and dead, and I just cried."

She said the Big E felt like home.

Pam Price started working at the Executive Inn when she was 18 and became known as a jack-of-all-trades, bussing and waiting tables, cooking and delivering room service meals and so on. One day when delivering a meal, she knocked on the room door and Waylon Jennings opened it.

"He had all his (public relations) people with him in the room, but he answered the door," Price said. "All I could think to say was, 'Howdy.'

"He was real nice and has been a favorite of mine."

Price also met her husband David at the Big E.

"I couldn't count how many owners and bosses we had, there was no retirement (package), but I love working there," she said. "We felt like we were part of something big.

"You saw all those entertainers, and it was an adrenaline rush."

Price had a different kind of adrenaline rush once when a pregnant woman fell into the outdoor pool by accident. A tarp loosely covered the pool, but the woman's weight forced it down and water was coming up.

"I just happened to see her out there in the deep end of the pool," Price said. "I reached down and got her out."

Price said she preferred John Bays over the other owners because "he made you feel appreciated."

"If he saw you doing something that was above or beyond what was expected, he'd give you a tip," Price said.

Bays' philosophy was that the customer always came first. Price said that a server once waited on him in the Patio dining room even though she was still busy with guests, and Bays told the woman not to do that anymore, that she was there to serve the customers.

Rita Tooley, who worked her way up from server to catering manager in her 29 years there, had a run-in, literally, with Johnny Cash that she'll never forget. The legendary country singer exited the Showroom Lounge stage on the wrong side and collided with Tooley.

"I was carrying a tray of about 20 cocktails, and they went all down his front," Tooley said. "At first, he was upset, but once his road manager explained that he came off the wrong side, he apologized to me."

Tooley said it was exciting to see entertainers like Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Conway Twitty and Jerry Lee Lewis waiting in the kitchen before going onstage.

"They'd talk to us and were a good bunch of people," she said. "My husband and I went to Nashville and got on the General Jackson Showboat recently, and 95 percent of the songs they sang, I'd met those entertainers at the Executive Inn."

Rubbing shoulders with the stars was only a small part of the job. When a call for help went out within the hotel, people from different areas answered.

"If a big convention was leaving Sunday morning and another one was coming in Sunday night, we had to get a lot of rooms ready in a hurry," Tooley said. "People from the laundry or the pool or management would come in and help housekeeping. They'd vacuum, dust, scrub bathrooms, anything.

"We were so proud of that hotel, and we'd all pull together. Nobody ever said, 'That's not my job.' "

Vernon Mitchell, a Time Out Lounge bartender who worked his way up to service manager, said it was sad to see 250 employees lose their jobs when the Big E closed, but "gobs of people still keep in touch with one another."

And they'll tell stories like the time the Executive Inn hosted a Greek wedding and the people skipped town without paying the bill.

"We like to never got our money," Mitchell said. "We were on our best behavior that night, and those people ran us ragged.

"It was just like that movie, 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding.' "

"I'm really going to miss that place."

Rich Suwanski, 691-7315, rsuwanski@messenger-inquirer.com

Newstex ID: KRTB-0152-39534241