Among the students and people who are new to the Trojan way, there is another newcomer that Atlantic High School has welcomed.

Kelly Simonton is the new daytime custodian. He has been a member of the Atlantic community his whole life and  was even a Trojan himself, graduating with the 1980 class.

Simonton said he previously worked at Plastics Professionals as a maintenance man but was let go “with 200 other people” last spring. Plastics’ biggest customer was Yeti, but when Yeti pulled from Plastics, they were forced to let go employees. After being laid off, Simonton then decided to apply here at the school.

Simonton has a wife and and has adopted her daughter . He decided to adopt her a short time after he married.

Simonton enjoys shooting his firearms in his free time, so much so that he took it up creating parts for rifles as a secondary job. In addition to his firearms hobby, he has a machine shop where he makes mechanical parts for industrial companies out of whatever specific material they require.

He also enjoys riding his 2003 Harley Davidson and 2015 Triumph Tiger on long trips to different states. Simonton has ridden to  Wisconsin Dells, South Dakota and even to the White Rock Mountain area in Arkansa.

So far Simonton said the only difficult thing he has faced in his new job at AHS is trying to stay out of the halls when classes are let out so he “doesn’t get ran over.”