COVER STORY
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7
December 2011
“I’ve traveled for the company and supervised other Christian
schools — I’ll take this bunch any day.”
Chuck McKinney
Manager of Chuck’s
Random Facts about Chuck and Chuck’s
experience.”
Though Chuck said he has enjoyed his time work-
ing at Cedarville, he feels like the time may be coming
for him to step down.
“It really makes you feel old when someone walks
up and says ‘you fed me thirty years go or twenty years
ago, and I’m taking my son back to look at the college.’”
Chuck said that he is 60 now and will probably re-
tire from his position in one or two years.
“I’m sure they’ll find somebody that’s more up to
date and that can do the job with greater ease and more
professionalism and can relate better.”
After retiring, Chuck said he doesn’t think he’ll be
back at Cedarville as much, because he doesn’t want to
interfere with whoever is in charge. However, he said he
has told the company that he’ll work to help get the next
manager acclimated to his job and work as a resource
person in case people had questions.
“It’ll do fine [without me]… the company that I work
for will guarantee that. They’re very caring people.”
Chuck said he will miss working at Cedarville.
“Oh yeah, I put in ten to twelve hours a day, five to
five and a half days a week, so that’s a pretty big part of
my life,” Chuck said. “My wife’s scared to death that I’ll
be bored. But I keep telling her I’ll find enough to do…
so we’ll see.”
Chuck said retiring will give him some free time
to enjoy pastimes like golf and fishing, traveling and
spending more time with friends and family.
In the meantime, however, Chuck said he hopes to
continue faithfully serving Cedarville students. He said
he also hopes they will take his advice for their lives.
Chuck said he understands what it is like to get car-
ried away with dreams for the future and career plans.
“Plan for tomorrow. Live for today,” Chuck advised.
“Tomorrow’s always going to be there, but you have to
take care of today’s responsibilities — and also enjoy-
ments. Enjoy being young — I did. Don’t take yourself
too seriously. If you take yourself or your job or your po-
sition too seriously, you’ve lost the war already. … I tell
my assistants oftentimes, ‘10,000 years from right now,
what will that matter?’ Worry about the things that will
matter. Worry about the things that you can control,
and the things you can’t control, do the best you can.’”
The students are a major part of why Chuck loves
his job so much, he said. He will miss them when he
leaves.
“I’m very fortunate. The students at Cedarville are
phenomenal. I’m spoiled.” Chuck said with a smile,
“Best bunch of kids in the world. Like I said, I’ve trav-
eled for the company and supervised other Christian
schools — I’ll take this bunch any day.”
• Chuck lives about 9 miles off campus
on a farm where he has 13 acres. He
grows corn and soybeans and had
four meat cows this past year.
• Chuck is married and has three
children: two sons and one daughter.
All three children attended Cedarville
at one time or another.
• One of Chuck’s sons is a paratrooper
in the military.
• Chuck is a huge Buckeye fan and is
loyal to Cincinnati in the NFL.
• Chuck and his wife lead a small group
where they and seven other couples
meet every Sunday night and discuss
different books.
• The Cedarville staff is also seriously
considering turning the Hive into
a Chick-fil-A. If this were to occur,
transfer meals would go away, but
the amount of “Chuck’s bucks” that
students had would likely increase.
• Students ate 1,000 pounds of meat at
Chucksgiving.
