*The office held a retirement party for Robin Gay and Tressie Cleek on Friday, Jan. 28.*Gay began working at the clerk’s office in 1997 and worked mostly in jury management and juvenile delinquency and dependency.*Cleek is retiring a few weeks shy of her 40th anniversary with the office. She has worked the last 20 years in the criminal department.
Monitor Editor
STARKE— Two employees with the Bradford County Clerk of Court’s office walk out of the courthouse for the last time on Friday, Jan. 28, taking with them 64 years of experience.
The office held a retirement party for Robin Gay and Tressie Cleek to recognize their service to the public.
Gay began at the clerk’s office in 1997 and worked mostly in jury management and juvenile delinquency and dependency.
“I started in recording,” Gay recalled. “I was there five months, and then I went to misdemeanor. In 2006 I started doing jury management and juvenile delinquency and dependency.”
Gay added that over her career, she has heard a wide variety of excuses people give for not serving on juries.
“You just cannot believe some of the things people use for excuses,” she said, adding that one common reason people give for not being able to serve is that they have a handicap placard or tag on their vehicles.
“I have a handicap sticker on my car too,” she replied, “but I still have to come to work every day,”
Gay said the highlights of her time at the clerk’s office are the friendships and experiences she has shared over the years with her friends at the courthouse.
“Over the past 24-and-a-half years we’ve all raised our children and grandchildren together,” she said of her coworkers.
Cleek is retiring a few weeks shy of her 40th anniversary with the office. She has worked the last 20 years in the criminal department.
She has served under three clerks, beginning with Gib Brown and continuing with Ray Norman and Denny Thompson.
Cleek said she has performed every duty in the office, except recording, the last 20 years in criminal.
She added that her job enabled her to not only make friends within the clerk’s office but also with employees at the jail.
Cleek said that customer service has always been important to her, being helpful even to convicted felons who visit her window to make court payments or get non-legal advice.
“Some of them have been in the criminal justice system forever,” she said. “They come in here and hug my neck, and let’s face it: they don’t have any money and we have taken their driver’s license away, and they can’t afford the court costs to get the license back.”
“We all try to represent our clerk the best way we can,” she added.
(Left) Tressie Cleek and Robin Gay celebrated their last day at the Bradford County Clerk’s Office together.
