Meet Sean Hemsley, building service worker and snake wrangler
Photo courtesy of Brock Eastman
Building service worker Sean Hemsley visits with Eastman’s snake, Venom, escaped three years ago. Hemsley was the one who captured the harmless and beloved snake.
After graduating from WJ in 1989, Sean Hemsley returned to t WJ as a building service worker and has stayed for over a decade. During his time here, he has built strong friendships with his coworkers, such as Biology teacher Khanh Chau and Building Service Manager Shelton Neal. Due to his humor and willingness to help, his colleagues consider him a good friend and employee.
“He likes to crack jokes, and I like to crack jokes,” Chau said.
Hemsley has had a long and colorful relationship with the science department.
“Sean’s been the custodian for my classroom for I wanna say it’s like eight years,” Chau said.
During this time, Hemsley grew close with Chau and science teacher Brock Eastman. Eastman is known for his controversial class pet in his classroom, a snake named Venom. According to Chau, Venom escaped approximately four years ago.
“The snake got out; we were looking everywhere for it, up and down the halls, and we told Sean, and so Sean kept an eye out, and sure enough, he saw it downstairs in the history classroom, and so he trapped it, and he caught it, and it was great! The best thing is, it took a week, that snake was on the loose for a week. We tried to keep it on the down low; we didn’t tell a whole lot of people,” Chau said.
Hemsley, as a good friend, has also made sure to kick straggling science teachers out of the building.
“Friday, Mr. Eastman, Ms. Leung and I, we were working really late, we were here until like six p.m., grading and doing Science Olympiad stuff, and Sean was like ‘You guys need to leave and go home, and I better not see you guys here on Saturday,’” Chau said.
Hemsley has five kids. A 23 year old daughter in college, twin boys in senior year, a sophomore and a fifth grader. He highly values a balance between work and personal life.
“[At home I like to] just relax and hang out and see how my kids are doing, how their day went,” Hemsley said.
While his kids do not go to Walter Johnson as Hemsley and his family live in PG county, Hemsley still makes the long drive to work at Walter Johnson.
“He’s very committed to the building, he loves his job here,” Neal said.
Hemsley is also known for his good humor.
“The day that the mouse jumped out of the trashcan, and I yelled, he laughs about that to this day,” said Neal.
Hemsley brings not only cleanliness to the building, but also friendship, warmth, laughter, and a supporting shoulder.
“He’s got a big heart,” Chau said.
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