Anna Lark turns 100 today. She intends to celebrate by doing what she has done for the past 47 years -- helping schoolchildren safely cross the road.

Cleveland's oldest municipal employee works as a crossing guard at the corner of Lee Road and Tarkington Avenue. Every morning and afternoon during the school year, she shepherds dozens of students from Emile B. de Sauze Elementary School across four lanes of busy traffic.

She took that post on Sept. 17, 1962, according to the city. Lark is now protecting the grandchildren of some of the first children she guided across the street on Cleveland's southeast corner.

But don't ask her about retirement.

"Would you like to be home sitting around doing nothing?" Lark asks. "This gets me out of the house. I like to be busy."She'll have more to do today than usual. The school plans to honor Lark -- a neighborhood institution known as "Gramma" or "Mama" to more than a few of the young walkers -- with a celebration for her century of life. The birthday party's planned for 11 a.m.

"She's amazing to me, just amazing," marveled Margaret Bates-Moore, the school's principal. "That's a different kind of stock."

She certainly showed her mettle Wednesday afternoon. The soon-to-be centenarian stood outside in the drizzle for more than 40 minutes waiting to guide students across the street. Business ran slow, though. Only a few youngsters hoofed it home in the cold and rain.

Oh, the kids of this generation. They could learn a little something about flinty toughness from the lady wearing the neon-orange ball cap and safety vest.

Lark rarely misses a day, no matter the weather. She typically walks the two blocks from her house to the corner.

"If the school's open, she's there," said one of Lark's grandchildren, Vanessa Griffin of Cleveland. "She's protective of those kids."

She shows it, too.

Lark marches into the crosswalk with authority when she's leading students. She holds her red-and-white octagonal stop sign high and puffs away on her trusty whistle. (From the sound of it, she should have no trouble extinguishing 100 candles on a cake.)

Those who inch too close to Lark's kids can expect an icy glare and a disapproving waggle of the stop sign. She's been known to point to each letter on her sign at times for impatient drivers.

"They get the message," Lark said.

She has a way of getting her point across. For instance, her late husband, Walter, initially asked Lark not to take this crossing guard gig 47 years ago. He wanted his wife to stay at home. She halted that thought the way she now does an SUV in the street.

"I told him, 'Now listen. I'm going to take that job, and don't say nothing,' " Lark said. "I straightened him out. I'm not somebody who's going to sit at home all day and do nothing."

On Wednesday, she crossed her last group of students at 4:34 p.m. She hung around a few more minutes, her sharp eyes scanning the Tarkington sidewalk for any sign of another backpack-toting child. Then she started for home with plans for a cup of tea.

God willing, she says, she'll keep coming back for more shifts.

"He'll stop me when I'm ready to stop," Lark said.

And she'll go until that day.