Friday is the official retirement of Jim Yute.
If you were to ask most students what was significant about this upcoming Friday, most of them would be quick to point out that it’s the start of spring break, which also means there are only two months left until the end of the academic year and the start of summer.
However, what you probably won’t learn from them is that Friday is also the end of an era at Ohio University.
Friday is the official retirement of Jim Yute. You may be asking yourself, “Who in the world is Jim Yute?” Well, you may not know him by name, but you most certainly have seen him during your frequent trips to Shively Court during your underclassman years (or maybe beyond … I know how tough it is to give up on all you can eat pizza).
He’s the jolly, curly-haired man who always wears a light blue shirt and will talk your ear off about the Cleveland Indians if you give him the chance. He’s the general manager of Shively, and he’s been a staple of Ohio University since the early '90s.
Jim has seen thousands of students come through the university over the years who worked at Shively, and the relationships with those students are what he holds most dear. Anyone who has worked for him would be able to rattle off stories about some of Jim’s quirks.
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Some might bring up the fact that he only has nine and a half fingers, and each person has a different story as to how he lost that finger (I hear it was in a water skiing accident). Or they may tell you about how he literally wears the same type of shirt every day (he has an entire closet full of light blue, short-sleeved, collared shirts). Maybe you’d hear about how when Jim eats an apple, he eats the entire apple (core and all), or if you got to know him well, you may talk about how he’s a husband and a father of two who used to work at Duke University before becoming a Bobcat.
No matter what you would hear, odds are you would only hear people talk good about the cheerful GM of Shively Court. He’s the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Shively, and it will certainly be a different place without him. Congratulations on your retirement, Jim. ... You've most certainly earned it.
James Turner is an Ohio University alumnus.
