FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Wearing a fiery red lanyard with “Manager” boldly written in white, Cathy Lee, 23, expresses her pride and contentment with her managerial position at Chuck E. Cheese while getting paid only $11 an hour.

Lee is originally from California, but moved here almost 15 years ago because of her father’s desire to farm in Northwest Arkansas. Lee said she didn’t really mind the move because she was only 7 years old at the time.

Many opportunities arise through connections of friends and family in this specific work force. Lee said she has worked at other places in Fayetteville including Walmart, but when her friend offered her a manager position at Chuck E. Cheese, she immediately took the job.

When asked what most of her money was spent on, instead of saying the common expected areas like rent, she said, “food and most of all things I like to do for fun.” This included going out with friends for a drink, video games and seeing drive-in movies.

She works hard, 40 hours a week, so she can do the things that she loves the most, which is spending time with friends and her partner, Kelly.

Lee said, “this location is the least busy out of the three in Northwest Arkansas,” which can be the worst part of the job sometimes. However, she also said that her coworkers and the people make up for the annoying parts of her job, which Lee laughingly explained were the occasional boring hours.

When asked about her favorite memories growing up, Lee said, “One of my favorite childhood memories was definitely hanging out with my cousins. We would just do dumb stuff; go swimming and look for cod fish.” Lee values her friends and family most in her life, and wants to spend her life enjoying every moment she gets to do so.