A letter hangs in Rhonda Milia’s kitchen that is unusual in its very nature. Addressed to Housing and Food Director Chuck Weaver, this missive acknowledges a debt of gratitude from Spanish professor A. Robert Lauer. The reason? A certain employee of the Bookmark Café kept the coffee brewing past closing time so Lauer could get his caffeine fix.

For Rhonda, this isn’t “above and beyond the call of duty,” as Lauer writes. Students and staff know her as the ever-present smile behind the counter at Oklahoma Memorial Union’s Starbucks. Or as the woman who decorates the chalkboard behind the counter with her artwork. Or maybe just as the friend who knows their regular coffee order and the date of their next big exam.

But Rhonda is more than a toothy grin and an embroidered apron. After two years at Starbucks and eight years on campus, she’s earned herself a following of students, staff and faculty whose mornings (and afternoons and, sometimes, evenings) are often made by the talkative Trekkie behind the counter.

To begin with, there is no complete profile of Rhonda. If you were to talk to her every day for a year, every conversation would lead to a new discovery, whether it’s a hobby, obsession or celebrity encounter.

This is a woman who sewed Danny Glover’s flight suit for the film “Flight of the Intruder.” A longtime Trekkie, she owns two actual outfits from Star Trek the TV show. Bright as she is cheerful, she uses her two years of language classes to connect to her Russian customers. And then there’s the diligently and lovingly crafted artwork — from drawings to paintings to hand-sewn bags — she creates continuously.

Summing up Rhonda is akin to memorizing her customer’s drink orders — something best left to her.

The Journey

Born a Navy brat and bred a veteran, Rhonda’s path to OU is about as diverse as any. Her father’s naval career meant the family moved around. A lot. Born in Chicago, she graduated high school in Kansas and spent the intervening years touring other states.

But like father, like daughter. She joined the Navy herself in the ‘80s as a parachute rigger on carriers. And her nine years of service have left her with myriad stories to tell.

There’s the phone call she received from producers of the 1993 Charlie Sheen-starring not-so-classic “Hot Shots! Part Deux.” As a parachute rigger, Rhonda not only packed parachutes that went into the planes’ ejection seats, but she also inspected all flight gear. This includes helmets. Filmmakers wanted to know how to fit Sheen’s hair curlers inside a helmet for a scene. They called Rhonda, who, with nary a thought, explained how to remove a liner inside the helmet to make room.

Though she admits she’s never watched the movie, Rhonda had a hot shot of her own in October 1988 aboard the U.S.S. Constellation. A fuel leak sparked a fire on the ship. Fresh off a flight-deck firefighting class, Rhonda and her fellow crewmembers fought the flames.

“I sat in this class going, ‘When am I ever going to be on a ship that catches fire?’” she says. “It was so hot that in the middle of the ship — the island, where they have the radar and everything — the paint was bubbling off.”

Just as people are drawn to her warm personality, so too do strange circumstances tend to fall into her lap. Naturally, she was stationed in Guam for Typhoon Omar and a magnitude 8.2 earthquake. For many people, this would be disconcerting. For Rhonda the weather (and life) enthusiast, this was luck and a prime photographic opportunity.

Perhaps more telling of Rhonda’s character is what she says was her favorite part of Guam. What else but the people?

“Because the island was so small, each village would have a fiesta and the whole island went,” she says. “They opened their doors. You didn’t even have to know these people. You just ate and talked. There were no strangers in Guam.”

From Guam she went to San Diego in 1995, where she worked for Starbucks and also served as a Reserve Police Officer, a job that gave her the chance to work security at the Super Bowl featuring the Green Bay Packers vs. the Denver Broncos. For a lifelong Packers fan, who once chased down a woman trying to steal her Cheesehead, this was one highlight in an already full life.

And somehow, finally, she ended up in the Sooner state with daughters Jessie and Kirsten, now a 21-year-old Navy Gunner’s Mate herself. She came to pursue a meteorology degree, of which she completed 75 percent.

Rhonda took three years of meteorology as an OU undergrad, and she remains fascinated by the weather. As 17-year-old daughter Jessie not-so-fondly recalls, Rhonda was so excited by the sound of tornado sirens during the spring tornadoes that ravaged Highway 9 she raced to the top of the Union Parking Garage to get a better look, much to her youngest daughter’s chagrin.

As to finishing her degree, she’s got no specific plans. After all, she’s unabashedly content serving mochas to the masses. She loves the people. She loves the coffee. And she loves having time for all of her other interests.

The Collector

She describes herself as a collector. And it’s evident she amasses interests — painting, hockey-playing and rabbit-tending chief among them — much the same as she procures the memorabilia that lines her cozy home on Boyd St.

Her home, like her life, is full of stories.

There are the dried flower bouquets in the dining room. The center one of which, she casually explains, was given to her by a fire department in gratitude for both her daily coffee deliveries and for fashioning covers for its washer and dryer.

“I like firemen,” she says with her trademark giggle.

Along the other wall are her framed Dean’s Honor Roll certificates, signed by Dean Doug Gaffin. She says only recently did she notice the signature belonged to Gaffin, one of her regular customers.

Speaking of Starbucks, stepping into the kitchen is like stepping inside a miniature model, down to the jazz music playing in the background. Mounted high on the wall is a “We proudly brew Starbucks coffee” sign, which itself overlooks stacks and shelves of Starbucks mugs and tumblers.

It’s clear the woman bleeds caffeine.

All of this would be unremarkable were it not for the stories behind each object and the enthusiasm with which their owner tells them. These baubles, trinkets and keepsakes are more than just stuff; they’re reminders of a life that has been spent embracing all it has to offer.

The Person

It’s fair to say, as much as anything, Rhonda collects relationships.

The proof is in the rapport she’s developed with her co-workers and her regulars, all of which greet her by name. Though sometimes, she can’t remember theirs.

“It’s so funny because you see people and you may not know their name, but you know their drink,” she says. “Like ‘That’s half-caf, nonfat latte.’”

Regardless of what she knows them as, these people have become more than customers. After working at Crossroads for four years, Rhonda moved to the Bookmark Café in Bizzell Memorial Library. She then moved to Starbucks when it opened in 2008.

And she didn’t make the move alone. Otherwise known as Decaf Skinny Vanilla Latte, Dr. Alice Lanning, director of Freshmen Programs, has gotten her coffee from Rhonda for eight years. Over the course of that time, they’ve become good friends. And Lanning says it’s not hard to be a friend of someone like Rhonda.

“I have never seen Rhonda in a bad mood,” she says. “She must come to work in a bad mood sometimes, but she doesn’t.”

Congeniality is one of Rhonda’s primary traits, but her curiosity is the one Lanning admires most.

“She’s probably the most varied person I’ve ever met,” she says. “She finds out something new and she does it just because she’s curious about things. She must have a high IQ because she’s into so many things and she does them so well.”

Demonstrating her skill set, Rhonda gave Lanning, an avid basketball fan, a pencil drawing of the OU women’s basketball team as a birthday gift about four years ago. It’s an instance of not just Rhonda’s talent, but her generosity as well, she says.

Even strangers seemingly can’t help but love her. Jessie recounts one story that proves she can’t take her mother anywhere.

Somehow or another, a drunken mob at a Tegan and Sara concert in Dallas began to spontaneously chant “Rhonda! Rhonda! Rhonda!” The details of how this came to be are fuzzy, but the fact remains: This is Rhonda’s world and we’re all just living in it.

Yet humility is one of this coffee queen’s biggest attributes, and she shies away from talking about her own personality. But her attitude toward her work serves as a metaphor as good as any for how she views life and treats others.

“Obviously when people come in, you want them to have the perfect drink,” she says. “I make every drink like I’m making it for myself.”

And she says she’ll keep making special foams for special people as long as she can.

“This is all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

This story appears in Sooner 2011. To purchase your copy, go to www.studentmedia.ou.edu or call 405-325-3668.