Every Friday morning at Dogwood Elementary School, 11-year-old Benson Mejia helps the building's facility manager, Rusty Ewell, hand out trays during breakfast in the school's cafeteria.
Mejia, a 5th grader, sees Ewell as a role model. He considers Ewell to be one of a small handful of strong, positive male influences at the school and in his life.
"He's a really good guy," Mejia said.
Ewell has been inspiring children like Mejia at Dogwood Elementary School in Reston for 30 years. After the conclusion of the current school year, he will leave Fairfax County Public Schools to become the building supervisor at a new high school in Prince William County.
Last Thursday afternoon, teachers, administrators, custodians and students gathered in the school's library to wish Ewell luck.
Irene Faithful, a teaching assistant for Dogwood's 4th grade classes, has known Ewell since the school opened. For many of the students who come from economically-disadvantaged families, often with only one parent, Ewell is an invaluable influence, she said.
"Many of them just have a mother at home," Faithful said. "It's good for them to have someone like him as a role model."
Almost everyday at lunchtime, Ewell sits and talks with the children in the cafeteria.
"He's their friend," Faithful said. "He actually takes time to sit with them. It shows how much he really cares about them."
Carolyn James, the school's librarian, said Ewell knows every child's name and has a "gentle solidness and humor."
"He's a mentor for some of these kids that really need it," she said.
Apart from the respect he engenders among the children, Ewell is seen by the school's employees as an all-purpose handy-man.
"Rusty's a great man," said Donna May Smith, the school's librarian aide. "He's as good with the kids as he is with the building and that's quite a statement."
EWELL SAID HIS JOB at Dogwood Elementary has been more than just a job, it's been a chance for him to help shape Reston's youngsters into good people.
"Like all of us here," he said. "This is about making sure they get through this part of their lives as easy as they can."
Over the past three decades, Ewell has tried to make a difference in the lives of students facing the challenge of poverty and occasionally neglect.
Some of these children have spent the summer at Ewell's house near Front Royal or simply joined him and his family for dinner.
"It gets them out to the country," he said. "Some of them come from rough backgrounds."
Ewell has a genuine love for both Dogwood's students and its physical building, said Luanne Grabski, Dogwood's PTA president for the past three years.
After an electrical fire destroyed the school four years ago, Ewell worked to get the new building ready day and night.
"The man lived here," Grabski said. "It was truly amazing the dedication he has to this school."
Ewell said he will miss the school and its students as he gazed at a portrait of him, painted by Mejia.
"This school's been good to me," he said. "I've accomplished a lot and I've learned a lot."