The comeback clerk

The Norman Transcript

Sat, May 17 2008

— Transcript Staff Writer
The new deputy city clerk may look familiar.
Ellen Usry spent 13 1/2 years working for the City of Norman before taking a nine-year break. And before she left, she was -- you guessed it -- deputy city clerk.
The feisty, funny, outspoken 57-year-old Usry is back and some say it's as if she never left.
The opening for deputy city clerk came along when former city clerk Mary Hatley retired and the most recent deputy city clerk Brenda Hall was promoted to that spot. That left the deputy city clerk job open.
"I think it was meant to be," Usry said. "I have always missed it, always missed it ... These city people are my extended family ... Leaving here, I always regretted it. ... I thought, how many times is this (job) going to come open?"
Ironically Usry trained Hall for the deputy city clerk position before she left.
"She's a hard boss," Hall said, jokingly.
And Usry stayed friends with many of the long-time employees at the City of Norman, including Hatley and Hall.
She left the City of Norman because her family had purchased a business and needed someone to run it. One of her sons took it over and now runs it.
Usry also had a heartbreaking loss of a grandchild about that time.
"And I decided I needed to spend some time with my grandkids while I can," Usry said.
That move also freed up time for her to do volunteer work for the Assistance League, where she published the newsletter, the yearbook and handled dues for about 600 members.
"Best thing I ever did," she said. "I was big on clothing these kids because that's what we do."
But she missed doing clerical work.
"I missed that big time," she said.
And so -- she's back and enjoying every minute of it.
Usry said she first applied at the City of Norman when she was appealing a traffic ticket. Since she was already at the City, she thought she'd check out the available jobs.
They asked her to take a typing test, which surprised her. That was good because she said she has high test anxiety, although she types 100 words per minute. By the time she had time to get nervous, which would slow her down, she had already nailed the test.
Usry started out working with the city's microfilm and eventually became deputy city clerk.
She's a history buff and loves to research local cemeteries.
That seems a little odd, even to her, because her family is not from Norman, although her husband Bob's family are Norman natives.
And she loves to walk, go see movies and reads voraciously, mostly fiction.
Her favorite right now is Harlan Coben, a best-selling mystery author with a sports emphasis.
"You need to read him," she said. "You never can guess the end to his."
Usry was born in Muskogee, an "Okie from Muskogee" she calls herself, and grew up mostly in Seminole.
Her family moved to Norman in 1964 when she was in the ninth grade to help support her older brother who was on "full ride" scholarship to the University of Oklahoma. She had three younger sisters who were triplets.
She attended Norman High School and graduated with the Class of '68.
And she met Bob Usry, a renowned, young troublemaker, when they were both 18. Bob had already been married once by then.
"He was the 'hood' and I was the nice girl," she said. "We went out with a big group of people and everybody went home except me and Bob. And we decided we were going to get married. And we did."
She laughs when she remembers their first impressions of each other.
"I thought he was a big mouth and he thought I was homely," she said.
She studied journalism at OU and he left to serve in Vietnam. They got married when he was home on leave.
Their friends said the marriage wouldn't last. But the couple will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary this December. And now he's more widely known as the Bob Usry of Bob Usry and Sons Plumbing Inc.
"I raised two sons just like him, so I raised three," she jokes. "And I have three wonderful grandchildren."
She counts herself as lucky to have her family in Norman.
Bob Usry has come full circle and volunteers as the director of Rotary Club's Youth Leadership Camp, where Ellen handles the administrative end including schedules and team building activities.
"He's awesome at it," she said. "He's not your general run-of-the-mill person. He shoots from the hip."
Usry calls herself an introvert, who warms up to people one-to-one. She isn't shy with her opinions.
"And I have gotten worse as I've gotten older," she said.
She said she loves being in the middle of things, which makes being deputy city clerk about the perfect job for her.
"I like to know what's going on," Usry said. "I like helping people."
And helping people in the city she loves is especially gratifying.
"Norman is a neat place," she said. "I wouldn't ever want to move away from here."
Carol Cole-Frowe 366-3538 ccole@normantranscript.com