School-custodian-turned author reads to students at Sprague School in Lincolnshire
The melodious sounds of mice squeaking, alligators grunting, monkeys chattering, and elephants roaring billowed from the library windows at Laura B. Sprague Elementary School on Friday.
They are the same sounds the school's former custodian, Edward J. Denecke, heard throughout the building's hallways in his imagination for decades.
Denecke, 60, now an author and illustrator, read his first published book, "What Happens at School When You're Not There?" to first-graders and kindergartners during an assembly in the Lincolnshire school's library. He encouraged the students to make the sounds of the animals as he flipped the pages.
Library director Donna Sabin said a total of 486 students attended two assemblies, where Denecke read tales about monkeys using their tails to make a mess in classrooms and an alligator flooding the hallway to make a slip-n-slide at night.
"The program was great and my favorite part was the monkeys," kindergartner Matthew Horak said.
At the end of the program, Denecke announced that student Kacper Feduik had won the school's kindergarten "What Happens at School When You're Not There?" art contest with a drawing of animals in the school.
The idea for the book started decades ago when Denecke was pushing a big green broom down the hallway and a student working with him asked what it was. And he replied "A big green alligator cleaning up the mess he made last night."
Denecke, who is formerly from Round Lake Beach and now lives in Ohio, said all of the stories in his book came from his imagination while working as a custodian at Lincolnshire-Prairieview Elementary District 103 from 1988 to 2013.
"I loved motivating the students," Denecke said. "I made up most of the stories to tell students that were spending half a day working with me as a custodian."
Students liked Denecke's stories so much they were assigned to work with him as a reward.
Denecke said one of his favorite parts of the book is when an alligator flooded the hallway. He said he once flooded the hallway too, when he turned a bolt in the wrong direction while trying to stop a leak.