Phillip Daughdrill was recognized for his service to his nation and the city of Clarksdale during a retirement ceremony held Thursday at a downtown coffee shop.
Daughdrill, who spent 37 years in the military and 22 years working for Clarksdale Public Utilities, retired May 1.
“You are a great representative of this community. You’ve protected us and served us,” said Mark Johnson, general manager of CPU.
Daughdrill’s CPU career began in September 1996 in the position of oiler. Over the next 22 years, he would be promoted to operator I and operator II, and he’d been in the position of operator III for the last eight years.
Daughdrill talked of his earliest days at CPU when “we ran everything we had” as employees were working seven days a week, 16-hour days for three to four months.
“We put out a lot of electricity, and we made money,” Daughdrill said. “Those were good times.”
But he said the city-owned utility has made great advances over the years.
“We went from a hard-scrabble time to a place where everybody should be proud of,” he said.
Many of his co-workers present at Thursday’s ceremony talked of Daughdrill’s honesty and his ability to teach and mentor them.
Fellow operator Wesley Harris spent nine years working alongside Daughdrill as operators in CPU’s South Plant and, more recently, at the Crossroads Generating Station.
“We were more like family than co-workers,” Harris said. “It will be hard seeing you go.”
Daughdrill, who joined the Army in September 1972, served with the Fourth Infantry Division in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003-04 and with the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Operation Enduring Freedom in eastern Afghanistan in 2012-13.
He is currently building a house near Bruce so he can be closer to his two sons, Matt and Phillip, and his four grandchildren.
