This month we are spotlighting Alison Merchant, a receptionist and records officer at Sevier School District.
Alison has been a record officer for three years, in addition to her full-time job. She works on records management whenever she can. The most challenging part of her job is finding records for Downwinder claims. If an individual graduated from high school, there will be transcripts, but if they were younger or never graduated in Utah, then they rely on roll books to prove student enrollment. She helps them scroll through page by page, think of any nicknames/middle names they would have gone by (to match to given names), look at the birth date and parent names (if they’re included in the books), to try to find a match.
Alison is working to organize and preserve their records so the next Records Officer can start with a clean slate. She is working with the school district to digitize the roll books. Alison said it feels great to be able to help people find themselves or a parent or older sibling in the records.
We asked Alison what advice she’d give to other record officers. She said:
“Organization is probably the most helpful part of my job. Without organization it would take me a lot longer to locate the records being requested. In some cases it may be impossible to find them without organization.”
Thanks for all of your hard work, Alison! We are glad to have you as one of our GREAT records officers!