Celebrating Liberty employee of 40+ years

For longer than many students and staff members at Liberty University have been alive, Bernice Hotaling has been faithfully coming to work every day. She sits down at her desk each morning ready to assist anyone calling into the university’s switchboard.

Hotaling, who is currently working on her 43rd year as a Liberty/TRBC employee, moved to the small Central Virginian town of Lynchburg in 1974 to accompany her husband Frank Hotaling who attended school at Liberty, known at the time as Lynchburg Baptist College. 

“I remember when I came here I thought ‘I’ll be so glad when Frank graduates school.’ I didn’t like Lynchburg at all,” Bernice Hotaling said. “I was just counting the days ‘till he graduated, and then he got sick.”

 Allison Heise | Liberty Champion
HONORED — Bernice Hotaling held her certificate for her 40 years of service to the Liberty community.

Bernice Hotaling stayed at home with the couple’s three children while Frank Hotaling attended school, but Frank Hotaling unexpectedly became sick with a disease in his bloodstream that would destroy his aortic valve four times. Paralyzed from the disease, Frank Hotaling could no longer work to provide for his family.   

“I had no experience,” Bernice Hotaling said. “We got married right out of high school. I’d always been a stay-at-home wife. My husband always provided well for me. Then he got sick, and we had no income. We lived on faith for a year — just trusted the Lord for everything we needed.”

God’s provision would come in the form of Old Time Gospel Hour which was Dr. Jerry Falwell Sr. and Thomas Road Baptist Church’s radio and television ministry.

“I took care of (Frank) that first year,” Bernice Hotaling said. “And then I realized somebody had to work. So, I applied to come to work at Old Time Gospel Hour. At that time, they (were) having a big push for the missions. So, I got hired to work at Old Time Gospel Hour in the data prep office. I worked there for several years.”

After years there, Bernice Hotaling, transferred to work at Liberty in the early 1980s. After working a variety of jobs, Bernice Hotaling settled in to her job at the Liberty telephone office. For more than seven years, Bernice Hotaling assisted students with putting money on their accounts so they could make phone calls from their dorm phones. 

Bernice Hotaling worked right next to the switchboard office when she worked with the telephones, never dreaming she would spend the next 25+ years working in a position she would have to learn to love.

“I said, ‘I never want to work in that switchboard. Oh my goodness. Almost every day I thank God that I didn’t have to work in the switchboard,’” Bernice Hotaling said. 

However, when cellphones became the norm, the telephone office was closed. Bernice Hotaling worked a few odd jobs at Liberty before her friend in human resources said there was an opening in the switchboard. Despite her previous feelings toward the position, she said she would give it a try. 

Allison Heise | Liberty Champion
Bernice Hotaling answers Liberty phone calls.

Then in 1992, Bernice Hotaling began as a switchboard employee and continues to hold that position. 

“I’ll be here ‘till the Lord comes,” Bernice Hotaling, who has five grandchildren and nine great grandchildren, said. “I just enjoy my job, and I don’t plan on retiring anytime soon. It keeps me active. If I retired, I’d sit home in my easy chair and read or watch TV and waste away.”

In the age of technology, Bernice Hotaling’s job still is needed at the university. She answers incoming calls to the general university number, directing people to who they want to speak with. 

Van Scott, who is in his 36th year working with Liberty/TRBC, hired Bernice Hotaling to work in the switchboard in 1992.

“Back in the day, especially in the daytime, there weren’t nobody working the switchboard except me and Bernice,” Scott said. “ … She was good. We both came to work even when we didn’t feel good because we said we can’t leave the one person there by themselves all the time. So, she was very conscientious, worked all the time. She was good on the phone. She was just a good employee.”

Through the ups and downs of the past 25 plus years at Liberty University, Bernice Hotaling has remained a constant. Through the financial issues, constant construction and change in leadership, Bernice Hotaling remains the happy voice on the other end ready to direct callers wherever they need to go.

A Fairytale Love Story

 Bernice and Frank Hotaling married right out of high school, then traveled around the country for Frank Hotaling’s job and eventually ended up in Lynchburg a few months before his diagnosis.

“What he had was 99 percent fatal,” Bernice Hotaling said. “He had a disease in his bloodstream that went to his heart. It destroyed his aortic valve four times. He had open heart surgery four times, and on the operating table during the fourth time he suffered a massive stroke.”

Frank Hotaling spent many months at the UVA hospital in Charlottesville, and Bernice Hotaling who did not drive was determined to visit her husband.

“So, I didn’t drive, so my boys would take me to the bus station and I’d get on the bus,” Bernice Hotaling said. “I’d ride trailways bus to the bus station, walk 17 blocks back to the hospital, spend a day, walk 17 blocks back, get on the bus and come home and take care of my kids.”

Later, Frank Hotaling, who would end up paralyzed, resolved to still drive his wife to work.

“He got paralyzed, and he (was) determined he was going to learn to drive so that he could take me because he knew I didn’t drive and I didn’t want to drive,” Bernice Hotaling said. “So, he went to a rehabilitation place to learn to drive handicapped equipment. Then he’d bring me every day to work.”

Frank Hotaling, who passed away in 2001, always made sure his wife knew he loved her.

“He hated that I had to come to work,” Bernice Hotaling said. “Like I said, I never worked outside the home. And he hated it. So, every Monday morning he had flowers delivered to my office. … When he was on his deathbed he told my son ‘Now you make sure your mother has flowers every Monday morning. So, my son did it for about a year, maybe a little longer.”

Photo Provided
Bernice and Frank Hotaling

A moment with Dr. Falwell Sr.

During Bernice Hotaling’s more than four decades in Lynchburg, she had countless interactions with Liberty and Thomas Road Baptist Church’s founder Dr. Jerry Falwell Sr. She remembered one instance when she was working at Old Time Gospel Hour.

“He was very outgoing you know,” Bernice Hotaling said. “I remember one episode I was working a night shift, and I was the only one in the office. It was real quiet. Someone just beat on my door and I said ‘Patience is a virtue.’ And I opened the door and there was Dr. Falwell. So that was the most embarrassing moment I had with Dr. Falwell. … He stood there just grinning and laughing.”

One comment

  • Nancy Urban Winn

    I worked with Bernice back in 1987 when we had the new telephone office COMMUNICATION SERVICES at Liberty! I am so glad to read this! Bernice was WONDERFUL! I am so proud of her! Consider yourself hugged Bernice!

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