Candy Horton, winner of the prestigious Jenny Chang Award for outstanding faculty/staff dedication, dedicates her work to students every day in NC State Dining. With advice, motivation and love, Horton uplifts students’ spirits daily.
Horton began working at NC State about 7.5 years ago in the “old Talley,” or the Talley before the remodeling, at Taco Bell. Horton then worked at Wolves’ Den and then Los Lobos after Talley was remodeled. Horton was promoted to supervisor at Tuffy’s after leaving Los Lobos and has been working there ever since.
“As I was brought up, being nice will carry you a long way,” Horton said. “My mother and father always instilled that within me. Just having good customer service period, you’ll never know where it takes you. It doesn’t kill anyone to be nice. It makes your day go by a lot faster and it makes people respect you more. I figured if I give out happiness, I’m going to get it back in return and I do.”
Horton likes to have fun and wants to liven up people’s days, and she keeps in mind that you never know what a person is going through before they clock in for work or after they get out of class.
“I have had kids that come in here and be like ‘Ms. Candy, I just came in here to see how you was doing today,’ ‘I just came in here because I was down,’ ‘I just came in here because something might be troubling me, something might be bothering me,’” Horton said. “To me it’s important. If you can’t even go to your own mom or you can’t go to your counselor or you can’t go to your professor and talk to them and you’d rather come talk to me, yeah I feel honored.”
According to Horton, she doesn’t mind giving out words of wisdom or a hug or boosting students’ confidence here and there. You never really know what another person goes through, and it’s important to let students know that there are people here that care about them.
“Interacting with Ms. Candy after a long day is bound to cheer you up. Her positive personality makes her a pleasure to interact with, and she remembers me even now after three years,” said Anirudh Bhateja, a fourth-year studying mechanical engineering.
Horton works at Tuffy’s and also helps out at Los Lobos next door, both of which can get very busy. According to Horton, the day-to-day work is generally about helping everybody get through the situation.
“If we all work together, we get out of here a lot quicker at night when it’s time to get out of here,” Horton said. “If we all work together, we can feed you guys a lot faster.”
According to Horton, she doesn’t mind switching back and forth between Tuffy’s Diner and Los Lobos to help anyway since it gives her a chance to be free from each unit in turn. Horton is happy to serve wherever she is needed.
“I liked her because she was really enthusiastic about her job,” said Jamie Lukhard, a fourth year studying mechanical engineering. “She seemed to really enjoy talking to both the employees and the customers while orders were being prepared. She seemed to also be willing to pick up any work where needed. I saw her work in both Tuffy’s and Los Lobos.”
Most of the employees will follow suit if an example is set, according to Horton. Horton works with new students each semester and enjoys meeting the new people, emphasizing that they are one big family. While students study, Horton studies the students to understand them and sympathize with them.
“It’s more of a game changer for me now,” Horton said. “It’s more of ‘let me see who I can save out there’ versus them going head first and messing up. I’ve seen it all coming here. I’ve seen kids drop out and I’ve even encouraged kids to come back and some kids even came back.”
At the end of the day when you see things like that, the work is all right and it’s not as bad as people try to make it out to be, according to Horton.
“What’s behind the scenes is behind the scenes, but my job is to show you guys that I can handle it and I can,” Horton said. “You guys are good kids. If it was the next lifetime, I’d do it all over again. I wouldn’t change it for nothing.”
Horton wants students to keep being the good kids that they are. Students are our future and we depend on the world to be a better place because of them.
“It’s a slogan that I always say to people, ‘failure is not an option, success is everything,’ Horton said. “So as long as y’all do that, I’m happy. I’m proud of y’all either way it goes. I’m like your proud big sister, proud aunty, or proud momma whichever way it goes. Just keep doing what y’all do because without that, I don’t know what this world’s going to be like. I keep trying to push everybody to be better. Strive for the best.”
