As thunder roared in the air and lightning cracked the skies with a blinding flash of light, rain poured into the eyes of over 200 Mississippi State University employees. It was around 3 p.m. on a wet Friday afternoon in 2012 during a highly anticipated football season. People trampled through mud, rushing to take down tail gating tents in the Junction—a joint and last minute effort to try and save many tents from an unexpected storm. 
  Alan Jabri wiped rain from his face as he directed people and assisted with folding the legs of a large Bulldog tent. When he looked to his right, there stood Bill wearing a navy blue suit and penny loafers, with two tent legs in one hand, and a walkie talkie in the other. As he spoke into the walkie talkie, he called for more people to help. It was a rough day in the Bulldog community, but through the joining forces of staff members, custodial workers and even some professors, the battle was eventually won. 
   “I’ve been here for 35 years,” Bill Broyles, now retired assistant vice president of Student Affairs at MSU said. “My official last day was January 31. I started on personal leave back in December and came back in January (2016).”
    Broyles first came to work at MSU in the spring of 1979. After working in the Bulldog community for six years, he had an opportunity to work for a real estate development firm in Gulf Shores, Alabama. As a CPA controller for a real estate development firm, Broyles said he dealt with condos, hotels and other business avenues. 
     “I worked with them for a couple years and realized the grass wasn’t always greener on the other side of the fence, so I came back here (MSU) around 1987 and have been here continuously since then.”
   Broyles began at MSU working in a department that was then called Auxiliary Services. The Auxiliary Services ran things like the book store, dining services, the telephone office, printing department, laundry and related businesses.
 “I was in financial management for them. I worked for a guy named Bill Nettles, who was the assistant vice president for Business Affairs and director of Auxiliary Services,” Broyles said. “Two years later, when I realized real estate development was not for me, I called him and asked if there were any opportunities for me at Mississippi State and he said ‘I’d love to have you back.’ So he hired me back in the position I left two years previously.”
   “Hey, Dollar Bill, I have a proposition for you,” a good friend and co-worker of Broyles told him during a phone conversation three years ago. Raymond Brooks said he called Broyles “Dollar Bill” when he knew there was a tough pickle to work through at work or if there was money that needed to be spent. With a loud burst of laughter and all 32 teeth showing, Brooks said Broyles has always been the epitome of what student service is.
      “He hates when I call him that,” Brooks said. “He just pauses and says ‘Oh what is it now’ and I can’t help but to laugh. He is the type of person to never say no, and it seems that every bit of his time goes into helping his team.”
     Broyles said he doesn’t know how to not help students.
  “It’s all about student service,” he said. 
     Whether it’s the counseling center helping a student with a relationship issue or test anxiety, or us running housing and providing a great environment for students to live and grow and become independent—It’s all about student development and student success.”
   Tears swelled in the eyes of Colvard Union Building Services Coordinator Alan Jabri as he recalled the day Broyles stood in the mud and helped take down tents.
   “I’ve known him between 12 and 15 years. If I had to use small words, I would describe him as genuine, charismatic and a man of his word,” Jabri said. “Those would be three of the biggest descriptors I could use for him. He has one of the highest levels of personal integrity of anybody I’ve ever worked with. His memory is second to none. You might ask him something and a month later you might think he has forgotten all about it and then out of the blue, he comes and delivers on what he promised.” 
   When the 200 plus MSU employees saw Bill helping out in the rain alongside them, Jabri said all the griping and complaining immediately ceased. 
  “He is one of us you know,” Jabri said. “If he is willing to get out there and do that—I’ve never seen an administrator do something like that. He is just willing to go above and beyond with everything he does. He was Mississippi State University. It’s easy to sit up in the Ivory Tower and get on your radio, but coming down and leading by example—that’s what it’s all about.”