WELCH, Minn. — Jack Harvey didn't grow up in the bingo hall at Treasure Island Resort and Casino.
He did, however, come of age within sight of the land on which Treasure Island now sits.
“There used to be a softball field over here,” says Jack, pointing. He glances across the bingo hall. “And this used to be a soybean field,” he says.
In 1983, 20-year-old Jack joined the other iron workers who put the roof on the bingo hall, phase one of what’s since become a 350,000 square foot entertainment complex.
“That was definitely a cold winter in ’83,” says Jack, recalling his days on the construction crew.
Maybe it was the biting winter, or the fall he took off a ladder, but Jack changed careers after wrapping up his work on the bingo hall.
He applied for a job inside the building he’d just built.
Forty years later, he’s still standing under his roof.
“It doesn't seem like 40 years, that's for sure,” Jack tells a bingo player who offers him congratulations.
Jack was hired as a bingo floor runner, greeting customers, handing out bingo cards, and verifying winners.
It’s the job he still works today.
Customers like Gerrie Lachowitzer have been with Jack since day one.
“As soon as you come in the door, everybody goes, ‘Hi Jack!’ ‘Hi Jack!’ ‘Hi Jack!” Gerrie says.
After 40 years, Jack knows his customers' names, too, along with their hometowns and what football team they root for.
“You're a happy camper today,” he tells a customer. “Your Packers won yesterday.”
All of Jack's 40 years at Treasure Island have been spent directly under the roof he put up.
“Still standing,” Jack’s boss, Chad Hauschildt, says with a laugh. “Every day we come and it's still up. You can thank Jack for that.”
Jack has scored more than loyal customers under his roof.
“Just happened,” says Jack’s wife Brenda, who was a stranger to Jack when she joined the bingo hall staff.
“We've been married nine years,” she says.
So, to sum up Jack’s adult life: build a building, work in the building, meet your wife in that same building.
And that’s just big stuff.
“I had a lady one day, her water broke in my section,” Jack says. “And now I've waited on her son, who's 18. I mean, that's some of the stuff I've seen.”
One-thousand, five-hundred employees work at Treasure Island Resort and Casino.
Jack beats them all.
“Number one,” Chad, his boss, says. “There's nobody been here longer than him.”
Nobody – rafters to floor.
Boyd Huppert is always looking for great stories to share in the Land of 10,000 Stories! Send us your suggestions by filling out this form.
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