Motherly but firm, Barbara Wilmoth is the perfect person for registering strippers for Palm Beach County.
She is sympathetic, even protective, toward the women who troop up to her counter, more so to the small children that they sometimes bring.
Often, the women feel comfortable enough to tell their stories to Wilmoth, with her short gray hair, wire-rimmed glasses and open-hearted Indiana manner.
A teacher for 23 1/2 years, she decided it was time for a career change after a freak collision with a filing cabinet left her with a broken jaw. She got her present job in 2007.
"It's been a remarkable job," said Wilmoth. "Every day is a new adventure. Before, my stress was up to here," she says, raising a hand over her head. "Now it's down to here," she said, bringing her hand down to her knee.
The county identification program, which began in 1998, is meant to keep underage girls from working in strip clubs. More than 4,000 adult entertainers, almost all women, have been registered since then.
Most club owners will not even let a woman audition without the ID card. Club owners are also fined $125 for every unregistered exotic dancer they employ. Some dancers complain to Wilmoth about the $75 fee, but it is a bargain, compared to the $125 fine for getting caught working without one.
"Two or three months after I started working here, one of the clubs got raided. Out of 220 dancers, only 25 had their IDs," said Wilmoth. "For three days, they were out the door registering."
Wilmoth can accept credit cards, but more often is paid in cash. Occasionally, she has had to spray the bills with Febreze before depositing them in the county coffers. She also keeps hand sanitizer close by.
One woman, apparently on her way to an audition, sprayed so much perfume on herself that Wilmoth went into a sneezing fit, which caused her jaw to spasm, followed by an asthma attack.
Now there is a stern no-perfume warning taped to her counter.
Situated right by the elevator in the foyer of the Emergency Operations Center, Wilmoth often attracts a gaggle of male co-workers when some of the more spectacularly enhanced women appear at her desk.
But from where she sits, the composite life of "adult entertainers" is far from glamorous. One woman was so inebriated that she had to be propped up twice before Wilmoth could get a proper ID photo.
"This was at 3:30 in the afternoon," said Wilmoth. "I don't know if she was coming or going from her job."
At least twice, she has seen men drop off women at the door, then toss out the women's baggage and drive away.
Occasionally, the identification program has a more grisly use: detectives sometimes identify dead women by running their names through the system.
She has written 33 pages toward a book, Sit Back in the Chair and Smile for the Camera, a collection of anecdotes and wacky stripper names.
One professional name was a mystery until a co-worker came by Wilmoth's desk waving a tube of lip gloss.
"Look at the name!" she said. "Chocolate thunder!"
(Historian note: Barbara S. Wilmoth is the daughter of Mrs. Virginia "Mama" Jay, retired SHS/WHS girl's Physical Education teacher.)
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