By: Shayla Phillips
“When we think about when we’re graduating, and we probably want to thank our parents, our siblings, our friends, and the teachers who took the time out. But I think we also need to think about the people who helped us get to class,” a reminder from senior Mondeson Mondesir in regards to the people who are “unseen by many” – Patrick Dormeus is just that.
Patrick Dormeus sits in the driver’s seat of UCF’s black route shuttle, with his bright red shirt and a smile just as bright as he peers through his sunglasses into the review mirror engaging with passengers.
“One day I’m gonna ride on that board,” referring to a UCF student’s long board who hopped on for a quick ride to class.
The student looked with curiosity and filled with doubt and questions, “this board?”
Dormeus nods and they both laugh. This is the tone that many of Dormeus’ conversations carry with those who dare to step foot on a shuttle.
“He takes an interest in your interests,” Mondesir, who’s been riding the black route shuttle for a year and a half now, states. Mondesir and Patrick’s relationship blossomed simply from a “good morning.”
Dormeus’ curiosity and welcoming spirit stem from his extraordinary past and his very own interests. Moving to Florida in September of 1982 from New York, he came with an Engineering degree in hand and a dream that was short lived due to the lack of experience in the field. But he went on to teach physics and calculus at Miami Dade College, where he taught for a year and a half.
Through teaching and tutoring is where he discovered how he dislikes lateness, and stresses the importance of getting his passengers to where they need to go on time. He decided to go back to school to get another degree in Criminal Justice, where he then worked at Krome Service Processing and Detention Center in Miami, Fla. where after the second week he became the chief commander.
He questioned himself, “what is it that I’m actually gonna do to leave my mark?”
He illustrated this by calling the detainees by their name and not by their number assigned to them. He continued this work for seven years. Continuing criminal justice, he became a Bounty Hunter for nine years, where he made enough money to purchase land in Polk County and to build houses for his two daughters and son.
That is his idea of success: being able to provide for his kids by sending them to college and making sure they had a place to live.
“You can’t take one penny with you in the coffin,” humbled by the success he became a Bus Operator for UCF in January of 2005.
“Each job is like food for my brain” and the most important lesson to harvest from it all is “if you can’t look in you and see what you can offer to the world, then you’re just existing – you’re just existing,” Dormeus is a manifestation of his words.
In whatever job he finds himself in he is sure to leave his mark.
Dormeus is the representation of the gears that make UCF tick and operate every day. He defines not only what it means to be a Knight, but also that ordinary people with extraordinary lives can leave the biggest marks on those who utter a simple “good morning.”
He is the energy that drives the campus and UCF students alike.
Mondesir expands on that by saying, “everyone had a part to play in the success of a student – everyone. It doesn’t matter if it was a Liberian who took her time to try to find a book. It doesn’t matter if it was a person at Dunkin’ Donuts that got you breakfast, the energy you needed not to fall asleep in class. Or even the shuttle driver who waited for you while it was raining. Although it’s not great, those are sacrifices that they make.”
And those sacrifices are what it means to be a UCF Knight.
