Radnor Lake gives 'dream job' to a nature lover with disabilities

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Radnor Lake gives 'dream job' to a nature lover with disabilities

Shawn Byington loves making people laugh, he loves (most) critters, he loves being outside, he loves talking about nature and he loves people.

So Byington, 45, really loves his job as a part-time employee at Radnor Lake State Natural Area, where he works middays on Wednesdays and Saturdays at the education center and the aviary, a 550-foot boardwalk with those big enclosures for birds of prey who have been wounded and can't safely return to the wild.

"I love this job more than any other," Byington said. "I hope this is my last job; I’m not going to any other job after this one."

Byington said he is relieved as much as he is grateful.

Diagnosed with intellectual disabilities as a child, Byington said he feels some of his other employers have taken advantage of him — sometimes that meant he worked extra hours without getting paid or he got the least desirable shifts or the least desirable tasks assigned to him.

"In those other jobs, he could be tired and grumpy, tired from unloading a truckload of stuff or doing all the dishes from the night before," his adoptive mom, Kathy Byington, said.

"It’s easy to take advantage of Shawn. He’ll sometimes tell you what he thinks you want him to say. But Radnor is totally different. He absolutely loves it. There’s no comparison to other jobs."

Read the full story from the Tennessean's Brad Schmitt .

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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Radnor Lake gives 'dream job' to a nature lover with disabilities