She told the ROTC's students and the Army professionals she didn't want to spoil last Friday's "Hall of Fame" celebration - that they shouldn't make a big deal of her announcement that she'll retire next summer, at the end of this school year.
But they didn't listen to Linda Guerrant, the ROTC Blue Tiger Battalion's Human Resources Assistant - the woman whom many of the cadets have called "Mama."
Instead of listening to her, Lt. Col. Donald Ray Ferguson, the ROTC's Army commander, called her up to the front of the second-floor meeting room - to the place where, just minutes before, five of the program's graduates were recognized for the leadership they've provided to the U.S. Army.
"No one wants to see you leave," Ferguson told her.
And one of those honorees, Col. Christopher B. Fry Sr., gave her a large plaque, thanking Guerrant "for 40 years of dedicated and loyal service to the Lincoln University Army ROTC program and the LU Family. Remember us always, as we will you."
Guerrant was surprised - and almost speechless.
"Like I said upstairs, I'm not a person who likes to be in the front-and-center," Guerrant said Friday afternoon, sitting at her desk in the ROTC program's main office. "I would like to be your cheerleader from behind.
"It just makes me a little uncomfortable to be receiving that."
"That" included a scrapbook of memories, written by cadets from over the years, telling Guerrant how much her presence had meant to young college students.
"Just the things the former students have written - it's just a blessing to me to have been a part of their lives," she said. "I know they say I've touched their lives.
"They've just done over-board for me."
Working at Lincoln University's ROTC program is only the second job she's had since graduating from New Bloomfield High School in 1972.
"Right out of high school, I went to work for the New Bloomfield superintendent," she recalled. "After he left, after two years, I left at that same time.
"Then somebody told me, "There's a job opening - since you've worked in schools before - maybe you'd like to work in a school environment.'"
So in 1974, she interviewed with Col. Clyde Orr, the Army's choice to lead the LU ROTC program for a three-year period as professor of Military Science.
"I guess they'd had quite a bit of turnover in this position," Guerrant said. "He was a very stern colonel, and he looked at me and said, "I'm not going to offer you this position unless you plan to stay. I don't want you coming in, getting some experience and then leaving me in a year.
""Do you intend to stay?'"
"And I said, "Yes, sir, I have every intent to stay.'"
When Orr visited the program about 20 years later - and 20 years ago - Guerrant reminded him of his first order, and he told her she could leave the job "any time. You've done your time."
Guerrant said she began making retirement plans about five years ago, after she and her husband, Stanley - her high school sweetheart and life partner for 41 years - moved in with her then-90 year-old mother and, "as the years progressed, she got a little bit more forgetful and a little bit more - I guess the dementia - and the plans went into place about then that, probably, I needed to be home with her."
Although her mother died last year, Guerrant said they just left her retirement plans in place.
At that point in the interview with Guerrant, Patrick Kent, the now-retired Army colonel who is recruiting students for the ROTC program he had been commanding, called out from his office near Guerrant's desk: "I'm trying to get her to stay!"
Although she'll retire next summer, the U.S. Civil Service doesn't plan to advertise the vacant position until she's retired, so she'll be back on a volunteer basis for several months.
"If I go out in June or July, that will leave that whole semester without admin support," Guerrant noted. "They've been good to me here, and I'll gladly come back and volunteer, to be here for the cadets."
Those students have been special to her throughout the years.
More than one of the former ROTC students noted how Guerrant had helped them through a rough spot, a situation that might have gotten them thrown out of the program, but that she helped them work it out with themselves and with the Army professionals assigned to run the Reserve Officers Training Corps program.
Guerrant's daughter also has found a temporary job with the program - 14 years ago.
"She was a student here at Lincoln, and there was an opening," Guerrant recalled. "She planned to do that for a couple of years, until she finished her degree, and then move on. ...
"This job, to me, I think it keeps you young."
After her husband retires from ABB "in about five years," Guerrant said they plan to travel.
"I like to read," she said. "And I'm sure I'll keep kids in my future, to be around children.
"I'm sure there's some volunteer work to be done."
Her experience "has all been positive," Guerrant said. "If I've touched any lives, I would want people to remember that I truly cared about the students and about the school."