After four decades helping to properly and safely bury local residents’ trash at the Powell landfill, Willie Pitt has finally decided to retire.

“We did not think it would ever happen,” Park County Engineer Brian Edwards quipped in a Facebook post.

Pitt began working at the landfill 40 years ago, back when it was owned and operated by the City of Powell.

While some people might be reluctant to work with trash, “I needed a job,” Pitt said, “and I took it.”

Two years after he started at the landfill, city leaders gave the operation to the Park County government — “and me, too,” Pitt joked. He continued working at the site for another 38 years as a county employee.

“I wasn’t planning on staying there forever,” he said, “but I did.”

Pitt rose to be the foreman/lead operator at the landfill east of Powell, overseeing operations there and using heavy equipment to bury tons and tons of trash. During his tenure, the Powell site was named Wyoming’s top landfill 10 different times; Pitt was also actively involved with the Wyoming Solid Waste and Recycling Association and while serving as president of the organization one year, he wound up having to sign his own award. (He was not the judge, however.)

Park County Landfills Office Manager Sandie Morris said Pitt “did an excellent job — kept it the best landfill in the state.”

“We can only hope to continue to do so,” Morris said.

In retirement, Pitt said he’ll miss the people he worked with and customers. “I made a lot of friends out there.”

It was difficult, he said, when the Powell landfill had to stop accepting large quantities of household waste — triggering a bitter dispute between City of Powell and Park County leaders that ended with Powell taking its trash to Billings.

“I hated that,” said Pitt, who had gotten to know the city workers well over the years. “It just threw a wedge between us — but yet we’re still friends.”

Park County commissioners and other county employees celebrated Pitt’s retirement this month, presenting him with a plaque and a framed photo of Bighorn Canyon.

“It’s been good,” he said.

He’s especially appreciative of the retirement benefits, saying he doesn’t know how anyone could live off of Social Security payments.

After his wife undergoes some medical procedures, “then we’ll maybe do something,” Pitt said.

In a post on the Park County Public Works Department’s Facebook page, Edwards told Pitt to enjoy his retirement, adding, “You have certainly earned it.”