It’s been three years since Becky Little retired from Byron High School, but if you ask anyone around town, she’s still the person who knows how to get things done. She always was.

“I doubt I ran the place,” Becky laughs, “but I did know who to call.”

For 24 years, she worked in the high school’s front office, quietly supporting students, staff, and families with the kind of no-nonsense kindness that makes a school feel like home. Before that, she spent 16 years with the Byron Park District and Forest Preserve, serving in its earliest days as the two agencies first got off the ground.

Put it all together, and Becky’s spent four decades in service to the Byron community—and she didn’t plan for any of it.

“I graduated in 1964 from Byron,” she says. “There were eight kids in my family, so college wasn’t really an option. I took Dale Carnegie courses instead—and I loved them.”

Those courses helped build confidence and communication skills that would serve her well. She landed a job with Chrysler, then followed her husband to South Dakota to work with his family. After a divorce, she returned to Byron with two young sons and saw a newspaper ad that changed everything.

“They were just starting the park district and forest preserve,” she says. “They needed a secretary. I applied and got it.”

That role soon expanded into more than minutes and meetings. Becky helped shape the intergovernmental agreement between the park district and the school district—a partnership that’s endured for decades. When the park district branched off, Becky followed her heart to the schools.

“I chose the schools because that’s where my boys were,” she says. “And it turned out to be the best decision.”

In the high school office, Becky became the heartbeat of the building. She worked closely with the principal and assistant principal, handled discipline referrals, parent calls, attendance issues, and served as a first responder for the emotional life of the school.

“I became everybody’s friend,” she says. “Sometimes kids would come in a little roughed up by life. And I’d tell them, ‘You’re going to be okay. You can do this.’ I knew what that was like. I’d been there.”

She raised her boys—both of whom went on to graduate college, build successful careers, and raise their own families—in Byron. Her youngest is a nurse practitioner, her oldest a senior director  at Medtronic Diabetes. Between them, she has six grandchildren, including a sophomore Business student at Mizzou, an English  major at the University of South Florida, and a recent University of Iowa graduate now living in Chicago.

“I’m proud of all of them,” she says. “They’ve done well—and I think the school had a lot to do with that.”

So did she.

Ask around Byron, and you’ll hear Becky’s name come up in all sorts of places. She’s still active with Serenity Hospice, the Byron Women’s Club, and Byron Fest, where she served on the original steering committee. She’s also deeply involved with her extended family, including her 96-year-old brother, one of Byron’s oldest residents.

“I don’t want to be idle,” she says. “I like helping. Always have.”

That spirit hasn’t gone unnoticed. One day, a parent came into the office carrying a quilt. Becky assumed it was a gift for a teacher. It wasn’t.

“She told me, ‘This is for you. The quilt’s name is Home. Because you made my kids feel at home when they were away from home.’”

Becky entered it in the Byron Fest quilt show the next year. It’s still one of her most cherished memories.

Through it all, she’s stayed modest—grateful, not boastful. But her influence is undeniable. She was there when kids stumbled, when parents called worried, when students needed someone to believe in them before they believed in themselves.

“I love success stories,” she says. “When I see a kid years later at the grocery store and they say, ‘Mrs. Little, I’ve got a job, a family—I got it together,’ I think, Yes. That’s what this was all for.”

In a town where it’s easy to notice the loudest voices, Becky Little made her mark by being the steadfast one—a voice of reason, a hand on the shoulder, a smile at the right time.

Not everyone needs the spotlight.

Some just keep the lights on.