By Kylie Wheaton

Every Friday and Saturday night Casper College security guard Daniel Valk spends his time playing pool with students in the T-Bird Nest. Valk teaches them the rules and fundamentals of pool and then challenges them to a game. But far more important than learning how to play pool, Valk is building relationships and breaking the wall between students and security. 

Valk is a retired law enforcement officer who has lived in many parts of the country. When searching for a retirement job, he landed at Casper College. Initially Valk applied for a maintenance position, but once the director of security saw his resume, he asked Valk to consider working for security. 

Since then, Valk has been grateful to be part of the security team and has never looked back. Valk enjoys the flexibility he has with this position and how it differs from traditional security jobs.

“What I see here at Casper College,” Valk said, “the philosophy kind of deviates from that traditional security role where community involvement, being part of the larger community, is encouraged and is very flexible in the acceptance of these non-traditional security roles.” 

Valk chooses to pursue this community involvement in a rather unconventional way: playing pool. 

“I saw students that were potentially self-isolated, they really weren’t making friends, they were by themselves in the cafeteria, and the only way to engage in constructive conversation was ‘let’s play a game of pool’” Valk said.

Valk has found great success engaging with students through pool. He is now the club advisor for Chalk & Awe, Casper Colleges new billiards club. Valk has used this position to connect with many students on campus in hopes to stay connected with them when their time at Casper comes to a close. 

Former Casper College student Tatiano Do Pinho served as an activities and intramurals assistant for Student Life during the 2023 – 2024 school year. Pinho had many interactions with security through her work study shifts. Her many interactions with security started as nervous conversations, but throughout the year developed into strong friendships.

“At first, before getting to know them I was afraid of security, but then they became like ok,” Pinho said, “and then I was like let’s see what this is about, then we became like family at the end.” 

Despite Pinho only attending Casper for a year, her friendship with Valk grew and became something she will treasure forever.

“Dan truly became someone very important to me, I call him grandpa for a reason and that’s just because that’s what he represents to me” Pinho said, “I have my grandpa back at home, he became my American grandpa that is just someone I can rely on and he always has some good advice to give. He’s just someone I trust and I know I can come to him even though I’m far away now, but when I was there, he was definitely a break from everything else when things got tough and stuff.” 

Pinho hopes to continue to stay in touch with Valk and encourages all students to get to know him. 

While Valk loves being able to connected with students, he also recognizes how those connections can help him when dealing with a situation on campus. He believes that breaking the wall between students and security helps students feel more comfortable coming to them with their issues. 

“For security to understand what their [the students] challenges are,” Valk said, “what they may struggle with and what they may need from security, along with faculty, I think is absolutely important.”

Valk has also gotten to know some of the Resident Assistants and it seems to have helped make their interactions smoother.

“It definitely allows us to I guess be less nervous around security just because we’ve interacted with them where it’s not like a serious issue.” Lead Resident Assistant Travis Scribner said, “or where there’s not a serious issue happening and so that kind of helps, it helps us communicate with them in a way that allows us to get the information out faster because we’re not so tense around them.”

Valk hopes to continue building relationships and creating a richer community at Casper College, as well as humbling all students in a game of pool.