By Rachel Kimbrough
Whether singing onstage as a self-proclaimed former “hippie” or inviting international student into her home, the college’s Dining Services supervisor bears others’ needs in mind.
Born in Omaha, Neb., Dining Services supervisor of service Nancy Whedon moved to the Kansas City area when her father had to transfer for work. Whedon said she adopted philosopher and physician Albert Schweitzer as an idol in fourth grade as she explored her own sensitivity for the needs of others.
“I’ve been this way since I was born,” Whedon said. “I would cry when somebody stuck their tongue out at me, I’d ask my mom why won’t that little girl be my friend, my feelings were always so hurt because I wanted to have everybody be happy and be friends. I think I was just born with that.”
Whedon went to the Art Institute of Kansas City, but said she was a “mediocre” artist. Her second year at the Institute, she and her friend joined a band called Stoned Circus who was looking for a female lead singer and drummer. The two women cleaned up the existing band members’ folk style and formed a rock band.
“We had to get their zip-up boots off and the pants off, and we all got bell bottoms and t-shirts and washed their hair and told them to grow it out,” she said. “We turned it around into a cool thing. Nobody had a girl drummer and a girl singer.”
Whedon became ill and left the band after a few years. In later years, she opened two of her own restaurants and worked as supervisor of room service at a hotel on the Plaza in Kansas City. She said coming to work for the college 17 years ago proved to be a different type of management than she’d experienced before.
“When I came here I had to adapt from being the ‘everything’ person and start to learn how to delegate,” she said. “That was very hard for me. My style is to make sure that my people don’t feel that I am above them or just there to yell orders at them or something. I like to be part of the gang.”
Whedon has offered lodging to 13 of her employees who are international students. She said that is an expression of her belief that it is everyone’s responsibility to be benevolent to other people, on both a global and a local scale.
“There’s no reason to have war. Everybody needs to chill,” Whedon said. “I think that that’s what my purpose is in life, touching people. I love helping people, I love being somebody people can come to if they want to talk to someone.”
Contact Rachel Kimbrough, editor-in-chief, at rkimbrou@jccc.edu.