'I need to feel like I'm worthwhile'

MOSES LAKE — Mickey Mouse adorns Karen Porter's desk at Basin Employment Service and Training.

"Mickey is universal," she notes with a smile. "Mickey appeals to the young people, it puts them at ease, as well as it does the older ones. It's an icebreaker, and besides that, I don't intend to ever really grow up."

The agency uses the golden rule when dealing with people, Porter explained.

"We've sat at that desk before too, looking for a job, and know it's kind of a frightening experience, so we try to give people a positive experience when they come in here," she said.

Porter first moved to Moses Lake in September 1999 with her husband of 37 years, Tommy, whom she met in Big Spring, Texas.

Tommy had always lived there, while Porter had moved there at 5 years old.

"Our parents went to the same church, so we'd been good friends long before we got married," she said. "We grew up together."

They were both involved in church activities, and Tommy finally got up the nerve to ask her out when she was a senior in high school.

"We were just friends, and then all of a sudden he decided maybe we could be more than friends," she remembered.

When Tommy's job as a maintenance mechanic in the Big Spring oil industry was phased out, he wound up working at a Wal-Mart distribution center, and the couple was transferred to Ottawa, Kan., then moved a year later to a new distribution center in Hermiston, Ore.

The couple moved to Moses Lake from Hermiston, as Tommy returned to maintenance work. He currently works at National Frozen Foods as packaging superintendent.

Porter is a retired optician. She worked for 23 years in the job, spending much of the time in her father's optometry office in Big Spring as office manager and dispensing optician. She recently returned from a vacation to Big Spring to help her 80-year-old father celebrate 50 years of being an optometrist.

Porter didn't have any desire to follow in her father's footsteps as an optometrist, but she enjoyed being on the side of the office where she was able to help people feel like "what we put on their faces made them feel good about themselves," she said.

She started working in her father's office when she was 13, and her co-workers told her that her father was harder on her than he was on them, because he expected more out of her.

"As I got older, I appreciated the fact he taught me a good work ethic, that you do what it takes to get the job done," she said. "He never cut me any slack."

Because there is a two-hour time difference, Porter and her father primarily stay in touch through e-mail.

"He's retirement age, but he still works 40 hours a week," she said. "I don't look for him to retire, as long as he's still in good health and still enjoys what he does. He teases me he's going to live to be 150 just to deal me fits."

Porter doesn't see herself retiring, either.

"If I ever actually retire, I'm going to have to find somewhere to volunteer or to do something, because I think if I don't stay involved with people, it's not going to make life worth living," she said. "I need to be needed, I need to feel like I'm worthwhile."

When she moved to Hermiston, Porter found small towns don't often offer a vacancy for opticians.

"Once a person is in that profession, they stay in it," Porter said. "So I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up."

When the couple moved to Moses Lake, the agency had just opened up, so Porter was initially placed into a front-desk temporary job, but was asked to come on board the agency in February 2000 on a part-time basis.

"The first week I put in 39 hours," Porter said. "The following week on Friday I asked her, 'Do you want me to go home now to where I can stay part-time?' I guess I've been 'part-time' ever since, because this office just grew. We just laughed about it, because it was only part-time the first week."

Currently, Porter serves as administration assistant for the agency. The position compares to the one-on-one interaction of her optician duties, she said.

"I enjoy when we can help someone have an opportunity they couldn't find for themselves," she said. "To be able to help them get that break, to prove themselves, to find a good job."

When not working, the Porters like to travel around the Northwest countryside. She also likes to work in her yard and with her rose bushes. She likes to read mysteries, autobiographies and biographies and work jigsaw puzzles, and one day she hopes to do her own quilting work, although she appreciates the quilting work of others.

One of Porter's hobbies is graphology, the analysis of handwriting.

"It's like putting a puzzle together," she said. "I've acquired a good little library of graphology books because I'm inquisitive and I want to learn more about it."

Porter originally took courses in graphology in order to learn more about the people she works with through the agency, in order to better know those people who don't necessarily open themselves up to her. But it interested her enough to go back and learn more, she said, and has come in handy on several occasions at work.

Agency employer Bill Chambers said Porter has been an integral part of the business, and he could not do without her.

"When somebody comes in the door, she meets and greets them with the same friendly smile and greeting no matter who they are," Chambers said. "She treats them all alike because some people come in who haven't had work in a while and sometimes they're not in a very good mood. When you turn one of them around and put them to work, they make really good employees, and she's good at it.

A native of Arkansas, Chambers said Porter possesses a good Texas welcoming. He moved to Moses Lake himself after living 10 years in Texas.

"She's always willing to listen to their circumstances and tries to put them in a work situation which will be appealing to them and to the client," he said.

Friend Kathy Koba has taken a handwriting analysis class with Porter, whom she has known for about six years.

"She's a very positive person, she's fun to be around, fun to be with and talk with," Koba said. "We share a lot of the same interests."

With their husbands, Koba and Porter have attended several Masquers Theater productions in Soap Lake. They are both also avid readers. The Kobas enjoy spending time with the Porters, Koba said, because of their friendly, upbeat, energetic personalities.

"She is what I feel is a genuine person," Koba said, noting sometimes it feels like a rare personality trait amongst people. "I feel she is very genuine and a very gracious lady. It would be very pleasant if more people could be like that."