CLU’s First Hire Retires Again at 88

Eighty-eight-year-old Ethel Beyer, the first person to be hired when Cal Lutheran was being established in Thousand Oaks, is calling it a career.

She will retire--sort of--on Aug. 4, exactly 40 years from the day she was hired.

Beyer, moving ably around the business office in a spring dress, 2 1/2-inch heels and an ever-present smile, plans to continue working occasionally as a volunteer.

“When you’ve been around something for 40 years, you can’t just walk away,” Beyer said.

She got the job after 27 years as a secretary for the now-defunct El Camino Oil Co. in East Los Angeles. In 1957, she was hired by Orville Dahl, the first president of the college, to be his secretary.

Beyer did whatever needed to be done: answered phones, typed countless letters, made lunches, even sewed curtains. The post office did not have a delivery truck so Beyer had to fetch the mail herself at the Camarillo railroad station.

Beyer was ecstatic when the school opened in 1961. And sad the following year when Dahl retired.

“He was always special to me,” she said.

“She will be very much missed from our employee ranks, but we expect Ethel will be very much with us in campus community activities,” said college President Luther Luedtke. “You might call her the first lady of CLU, not only by the time of her employment, but also in the place she has in the hearts of the faculty and staff and students.”

Despite her father’s wish, Beyer never attended college. However, in recognition of her contributions, she was awarded an honorary bachelor of arts degree in May.

She was born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., and her family moved to Los Angeles in 1927.

The college threw Beyer her “retirement party” in 1973 when she turned 65--then a mandatory retirement age.

“There was no thought of people working beyond that,” she said.

In October 1992, while sitting in her dentist’s chair, she complained of chest pains. Within an hour, she was having triple-bypass surgery for what turned out to be a heart attack.

Once again, she shunned retirement, accepting an offer to work in the business office 16 hours each week.

“She’s a fabulous person,” said Lynda Fulford, Cal Lutheran spokeswoman. “She has a lot of energy.”

Retirement will allow Beyer to spend more time with friends, her needlepoint, reading, watching television and going to movies. She is considering Spanish classes.

Beyer loves traveling and has been to Mexico and the Caribbean.

She hopes to see London one day but wonders if that will happen.

“It’s hard to find somebody to travel with that’s a good companion,” she said with a faint smile. “All my close friends are gone.”