Highland Lakes Helpers: Safety volunteer Pam Simek walks miles with smiles around Spicewood Elementary

Pamela Simek walks 14 miles a day, three days a week, keeping Spicewood Elementary School safe from two-legged and four-legged creatures and even critters that slither. Affectionately known as “Perimeter Pam,” Simek volunteers on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to walk the campus grounds, both inside and out, making sure doors that should be locked are locked, empty classrooms are really empty, and no threats, including snakes, await students outdoors. 

“I find lots of critters—snakes quite often,” Simek said. “The non-venomous ones I leave alone. The venomous snakes, we catch and dispose of them.”

The 71-year-old Simek dresses in school colors and, during hot months, snake-proof boots that reach to her knees. She also carries a walkie-talkie that comes in handy when she needs a snake pole. 

“I don’t want to walk around with it, so I use the walkie-talkie to call for the snake pole,” she said. “We had to dispose of two rattlesnakes and a coral snake last year: one rattlesnake in April, one in August after school opened, and a coral snake in November.” 

She doesn’t keep track of the non-venomous snakes, which greatly outnumber the other kind. 

Simek is uniquely qualified to supplement the school resource officer assigned to Spicewood Elementary by the Marble Falls Police Department. She served 20 years in the U.S. Navy as an E6 intelligence analyst. One of her final deployments was in Puerto Rico, working with a Navy SEAL detachment. 

After military retirement, she worked at the Candle Factory in Marble Falls (now closed), Walmart, the Internal Revenue Service, and as a wilderness search-and-rescue technician. 

“I’ve dug ditches,” Simek said. “There’s not a lot that I haven’t done.” 

She also decided to earn a few degrees after she retired from service. Simek has an associate’s degree in criminal justice, a bachelor’s in public safety management, and a master’s in public administration and policy guidance with a minor in homeland security. All but the bachelor’s degree, which she got from St. Edward’s University in Austin, were done online. 

“I wanted to continue to give back,” said Simek when asked why she chose these fields. “I figured degrees in public safety would help me do that.” 

Coupled with her love for canines (she has eight Rottweilers at her Spicewood home), her military and law enforcement experience led her to work with cadaver and recovery dogs. As a wilderness search-and-rescue technician for TEXSAR, she was in the Houston-Galveston area after Hurricane Ike in September 2008 and the Wimberly area after the 2015 Labor Day weekend flood.

She currently assists on a regular basis at Texas State University’s Forensic Anthropology Center in San Marcos, training cadaver dogs.

“I just like being outside,” she said, adding that she gardens vegetables, an effort that has been thwarted by drought the past few years. 

Simek is also raising her great-nephew, who is now in the sixth grade. She has been his primary caregiver since he was a newborn. He’s also the reason she volunteered for security duty at Spicewood Elementary.

“He has special needs and can be disruptive,” she said. “I started here as a way of being able to keep an eye on him and making sure he was staying out of trouble.” 

Her charge has moved on to middle school, but Perimeter Pam stayed at Spicewood Elementary. 

“I stayed because I love the kids,” she said. “I love the staff here at school. We’re like family.”

The Perimeter Pam moniker was first used by Spicewood Elementary Principal Kara Gasaway. It stuck. 

“Perimeter Pam is fabulous!” Gasaway said. “The students and staff love and appreciate her volunteer hours and the love she shows us. When she first began walking the campus, it was easy to see that she was going above and beyond by actually walking the entire school perimeter, checking gates, etc. This is why I lovingly refer to her as Perimeter Pam.”

Three years into the job, Perimeter Pam has become famous. She was voted the 2025 Locals Love Us Favorite Volunteer in the Marble Falls area. Locals Love Us is an annual best-of contest run by The Picayune Magazine and KBEY 103.9 FM Radio Picayune. Winners are listed in the Locals Love Us magazine, which can be found—for free—in stores, lodgings, restaurants, and newsstands across the Highland Lakes as well as online.

Megan Hamilton, the district communications specialist for Marble Falls Independent School District, noted that all campuses have school resource officers and most have volunteers. 

“We do have parent volunteers, but there’s nobody like Perimeter Pam,” she said. “The more we can have people checking doors and walking the grounds, the more it helps us with security.”

Hamilton also pointed out that Simek is at the school three days a week, rain or shine. She keeps a coat and rain gear in her truck for bad weather. When the heat turns up, she can be found in cargo shorts. She wears purple sneakers when snake boots aren’t necessary. 

Simek humbly shrugs off the accolades and praise for the conscientious way she conducts her job.

“I love this school,” she said. “I plan on continuing with this as long as I can.” 

suzanne@thepicayune.com