When you first walk into the snug lobby of Benzing dorm, the first thing you might smell is popcorn.
Burnt popcorn.
You might also hear someone yelling, “For real? For real!” That’s her Italian-Scottish coming out.
That’s Sue Postle.
Postle loves making popcorn.
She also loves dancing freestyle on chairs and tables, listening to anything from worship music to Glenn Miller and Frank Sinatra, and watching a good chick flick or Braveheart. Her shelves are lined with books ranging from D-Day books, cookbooks, the Bible, and everything in between.
Postle is the new house director of Benzing. She was born and raised in the suburbs of Cleveland, and lived there until her recent move to Hillsdale. She has been here for two months now, and she still cannot believe she is here.
Postle’s first encounter with Hillsdale College goes back to a huge college fair that she and her daughter Jenny attended. Postle said that when they walked in, she said a prayer to the Holy Spirit that they might be directed to the right school. She picked up a brochure from the Hillsdale booth. Postle and Jenny visited the college, and they both loved it. During Jenny’s four years, Postle loved the college and was disappointed that she never had the opportunity to attend.
When her daughter and son-in-law, Brock Lutz, moved to Hillsdale two years ago, Postle had all the excuses in the world to visit them and her four beautiful grandchildren.
Meanwhile, Postle returned to school after a thirty-year hiatus. She attended Ursuline College in Ohio and earned a Bachelor of Arts in social work and a minor in sociology. She got her social worker license and planned to work with teens in schools after graduation.
“I do have a heart for those that are hurting,” she says.
Postle said that going back to school and attaining her degree was a lifelong dream.
“It was a stretching experience going back to school, but it was one of the best things I ever did,” Postle says.
Almost a year ago, Postle was entering her senior year of college. She came to Hillsdale to visit her daughter and her family. While Postle was visiting a dorm and helping a student-friend to unpack and settle in, she loved the dorm environment.
“I wanna be a house director!” she remembers saying.
But that was it. The idea was forgotten in the frenzy of senior year.
In October, Postle returned to visit her grandchildren over her fall break. She had an informal meeting with Dean Philipp. Though there was no openings for a house director at the time, her chance came in January, when she had a formal interview.
“Doors just kept opening, and I just kept walking through the doors,” Postle said.
Despite her plans to be a social worker and enjoy life after college, Postle had the chance to return to her beloved Hillsdale as a house director.
“In the meantime, I was offered a job and I took it.” She said. “It’s really pretty wild, this was not my intention at all.”
Postle sold her house in Cleveland easily. She left her mother, her sister, her friends, and overall a place of security. Only last week, she became a Michigan resident.
“I burned the boats,” Postle says. “I’m really trusting that I’m supposed to be here, and I really love it.”
Yet, she still cannot quite believe it.
“Now I’m here. It’s like I’m here. The day I got my sticker for my car, I was like, I can’t believe I’m here, really?”
Postle believes that her skills as a social worker are transferrable to working with young people and college students.
“I have a heart for college kids…I would rather hang out with college kids any day than hang out with adults,” Postle says. She has so much energy and vitality, and she connects with young people in a special way because of it.
“But I just have a love for young people, and as a young person, I made a lot of choices that weren’t always the best choices,” Postle explains. “I feel like I have an understanding of young people. I think I do.”
Postle says that her reasons for coming back to Hillsdale as a house director were two-fold.
“I didn’t just take this because it was job. I see this job really as a calling,” Postle says.
For her, being in Hillsdale allows her to fulfill the dreams she has of watching her grandchildren grow up, going to their games, and loving them. She left behind a lifetime of security, friendships, and relationships to come to Hillsdale, not knowing quite what would happen.
“So coming here is insecure, yet I knew that I wanted to sow into things, like, I want to say eternal things, like loving my grandchildren,” Postle said. “Sowing into lives of young women or young people. I just love being here. So here I am!”
Postle believes that she is, in a way, doing life backwards. When Postle first met the previous Benzing house director, Sue Abel, she was given meaningful advice.
“When I met Mrs. Abel, my predecessor, she told me…she said that she always tells her girls that life is a series of start overs,” Postle says. “In so many respects my life has been a series of startovers. But I see the hand of God on my life, on my children’s life, and I just feel really grateful.”
Postle believes that dorm life suits her, and her favorite part about her job is being available to the girls. She says that she is “blessed beyond blessed” to be a part of this big family. Although she is the “house mom,” Postle says that she is a mom but at the same time is not. She was encouraged about how welcoming the girls are and how they agreed that they did need a mom away from home.
“You’re all sweethearts,” Postle said.
Amidst tears, Postle remembers the two pivotal women who impacted her life.
The first is her 100% Italian Aunt Mary. Postle said her aunt taught her all about hospitality in her 50’s style restaurant, where she always had a pot of soup cooking.
“She always cooked for us,” Postle said. “She had everything from homemade ravioli to real hamburgers…real hamburgers, and homemade french fries.”
Postle has very much followed in her aunt’s footsteps, extending hospitality and service wherever she can.
Her second role model is a woman who she met over 30 years ago.
Lois Gorman is in her late-80’s and has dementia now. She was Postle’s Christian mentor and the woman who influenced Postle’s life possibly more than anyone else.
“She taught me everything I knew about how to walk with Christ and have a relationship with him,” Postle recalls. “She taught me about faith. I watched her walk through hell in her life.”
Postle tells how Lois lived her faith in the daily walk with Christ, and Postle learned by watching her.
Postle says that the simplicity of life and service of others that she witnessed in her aunt and in her Christian mentor is the same life that she wishes to lead.
“These weren’t people with a lot of education,” she says. “These were humble women who lived a humble life, and yet they lived a life of faith in Christ, and they just got their priorities right.”
By prayer, thought, and pursuing a simple life, Postle is sowing into fertile ground. She is getting her priorities straight day by day, following in the footsteps of those she loves, and creating her own footprints as well.
And as long as the doors keep opening, Postle will keep walking through.
And when you open the door of Benzing, Postle will be there, beaming over her bowl of popcorn.