Smile often.
Practice patience.
Speak freely.
And favor special moments.
That’s the philosophy of Dusty Walton of Eccles.
She is a full-time mom, wife, college student and employee. She works at a local care provider for persons with disabilities. The area office is in Beckley.
Dusty is the lead quality living assistant. Her job includes making schedules for the staff and assisting consumers with managing their finances and improving their daily living skills.
“My greatest reward is derived from working with the people that I serve,” explained the 27-year-old junior at New River Community and Technical College in Beckley.
She plans one day to become a nurse.
“When I get smiles and ‘thank-you’ from my clients, I know that I have helped them in some way,” she added. “That makes me feel good about myself when I help someone else reach their goal or accomplish a task.”
Dusty’s motto at work, however, is: “Do with, not for.”
In other words, her mantra is to help the clients become as independent as possible, so that one day they can live on their own without any other kind of support services.
The Liberty High School graduate is optimistic about the future. “I’ve always been very outspoken, saying what is on my mind,” she said with a laugh. “But it has worked out for me. I believe in letting others know where I stand.”
Back in elementary school, Dusty liked to talk to everyone. “I talked to the upper grades, the lower grades, it didn’t matter; if people talked to me, I talked to them. I learned a lot of different things about people. Everyone has his own opinion; everyone is brought up differently.”
She liked art class, too.
“I would sit around and draw portraits of other students, and they would tell me I had a natural talent for capturing their essence,” she said. “That made me proud.”
Born at Fairdale, Dusty moved to Eccles with her parents when she was in the third grade.
“I came from a rather large family,” she observed. “There are 14 of us kids. I had seven sisters and six brothers. Mom and dad had their hands full most of the time with us.”
Having a large family, though, has its advantages.
“We never had to go without someone to play with, talk to or fight with. You always had somebody to take up for you, too.”
But it has its downside when you share a room with three other sisters, Dusty pointed out.
“We all had twin size beds, and the three older girls would push theirs together to make one big bed. But since I was the youngest, and they said I didn’t shave my legs, I couldn’t’t sleep with them.”
She laughed, adding: “I slept with my glow worm until I was almost a teenager. I was afraid of having bad dreams if I didn’t sleep with it. When my sisters stole it from me, I would cry myself to sleep.”
But, according to Dusty, one other good thing resulted from growing up in such a large family atmosphere.
“When you have that many people around, you learn from other people’s mistakes.”
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Top o’ the morning!
