More than just an Uber driver
Her name is Keisha Herbert. But they call her something else.
“He started calling me Mama Keisha and he was like is that okay? I was like sure, no problem,” Herbert said. “The next weekend I had came out here and it had exploded. Everyone and their mama knew who I was.”
Mama Keisha is the Elon area’s first female Uber driver, but students say she’s much more than that.
“She’s funny. she’s outgoing. But I think the thing I love about her most is she’s really motherly,” sophomore Davis Ann Balodeau said.
“She’ll just give you life advice. You can have venting sessions with Mama Keisha.”
Being a mother of one 24-year-old herself, Mama Keisha said she has used her motherly instincts in her time driving for Uber.
“They call me mama so I feel like I should get them home safely, just like their own mama would.”
While Mama Keisha is a full-time overnight Uber driver, she jokes that she’s a part-time confidant.
“I become a part of their lives. I can talk to them like a sister,” Mama Keisha said. “They can talk to me about anything and it’s not going to go any further than me.”
But a local celebrity? Mama Keisha doesn’t think so.
“I’m not legendary, okay? That’s what they tell them. I’m legendary. I’m not legendary. It just so happens that most of the kids know me.”
Mama Keisha says she turns down invitations to parties-because for her, every ride is a party.
“If we hear a song on the radio we like, let’s sing wherever we going. Let’s stop, make two or three stops and pick up folks and keep it moving.”
It all goes back to taking care of the Elon students she considers one of her own.
“If they call me and tell me to pick them up that’s what I do,” Mama Keisha said. “They might not know where they’re at, but the next day they’ll be like, ‘Mama got me home.’ And yup. I got you home.”
