As the sun signals morning, outside of her Bentleyville home, Mandy Matay gets in her blue Volkswagen convertible she calls “Lillybug.” She arrives at Waynesburg University promptly by 8 a.m. to prepare for over 90 pizzas she creates daily at the Beehive.

“I look outside in the morning and see the Chapel, and the sunrises here can be beautiful,” Matay said. “I love that the most.”

By the time Matay, a lover of country music and the television show Supernatural, begins preparing the pizza dough, she has already tended to her beloved Goldendoodle puppy Harley and made the 30-minute commute to the Beehive, where she has worked as a food service worker since 2015.

Her morning duties include preparing the pizzas, filling the soda machine with ice and serving students who order from Starbucks. According to Matay, she gets special enjoyment creating “pretty” drinks for students.

“If I could just sit there and do Starbucks, I would,” Matay said.

During 2015, according to Matay, an unusual amount of employment opportunities were offered in the Beehive due to a sudden increase in employees either retiring or leaving.

“All the positions at the Beehive were open at the time,” Matay said. “I really lucked out. I really love it up here…this really just fell into my lap.”

According to Matay, some of the best parts of her job include making Starbucks and the “family atmosphere” that she gets with her fellow employees and students she serves.

“We get to know what classes students are taking and what they are majoring in,” Matay said. “You’re so hopeful for them and you get to see everyone grow. It’s a family, it’s tight-knit. I love it.”

The Beehive opportunity came while Matay was in-between jobs, she had stopped working a long-term job as an operations manager at a residential cleaning company, and she was working at a friend’s restaurant in the meantime.

“I took a bit of a breather,” Matay said of the time between her jobs as the operations manager and the Beehive.

According to Matay, many of her friends own restaurants, including her boyfriend of four years, Jared.

“Everybody I know has a restaurant,” Matay said with a laugh.

Matay first started gaining experience in serving food during her time as a flight attendant for U.S. Airways, where she worked for seven years, both pre- and post-9/11.

“I would always want to fly towards the front of the plane in first-class because their service in first class was amazing,” Matay, who enjoyed serving the patrons during lights, said.

Matay took the job as a flight attendant to leave the southwestern Pennsylvania area where she had been raised and attended school in the Bentworth school district.

“I was 23 and I just needed out of a small town,” Matay said.

When U.S. Airways announced that it was no longer going to operate out of Pittsburgh International Airport, Matay had faced a decision regarding her future. Though Matay had the opportunity to travel and “broaden her horizons,” years after she left her job, she resides in the same location in which she grew up.

“I’m back,” Matay said. “I’m a small-town girl, I always knew that I would come back…There was never any doubt about me coming back. But you have to fly for a while, spread your wings.”

A lifelong passion of Matay’s is music, particularly country. Matay makes it clear that she enjoys listening to songs instead of playing or performing it herself, though many of her family members are musically-inclined. According to Matay, she enjoys listening to music as she sits on her porch and during her commute home.

“If it’s nice outside I will put the top down and put on the radio and take the long way home,” Matay said.

According to Matay, spring and its warmer temperature cannot come soon enough for her outdoor runs. She uses them to “clear her head” as well as for their physical benefits. Matay became a runner after some health problems pushed her to her physical breaking point.

“One day I called it quits. I woke up and I said ‘I am done.’ I put on a pair of tennis shoes, and I ran,” Matay said.

In the time since Matay applied to the Beehive approximately three years ago, she has been able to get to know students, faculty and her fellow coworkers. According to Matay, seeing familiar faces everyday gives her a “sense of security.”

“I didn’t realize the relationships that I was going to build with so many people,” Matay said. “It has given me so many friendships, it really is a gift.”

As Matay reminisces, a fellow co-worker taps her shoulder and the two trade jokes and chat. Matay’s curly brown hair, swept into a ponytail and mostly hidden under her Aladdin’s hat, bounces with her laugh as she turns back.

“I am blessed with family and blessed with friends, and, of course, the women I work with,” Matay said with a slight shake of her head. “You can’t get any luckier than that.”