PARIS – Breakfast will be waiting for all students on Wednesday, the first day of school in SAD 17.

And it will be nutritious, said new Food Service Director Martha O’Leary.

K-7 and ninth-graders begin Wednesday, while eighth-, 10th-, 11th- and 12th-graders start Thursday.

The 600-plus staff of SAD 17 begins earlier with the annual opening day ceremony at the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School.

They will be the first to be fed under the regime of the new food service director.

There will be a continental breakfast buffet and lunch of sandwiches and several cold salads.

O’Leary said she is not nervous about her first meal.

“I breathed a big sigh of relief when all our food got here earlier this week,” O’Leary said Friday. “When our milk gets here Tuesday I’ll breathe one more sigh of relief.”

O’Leary said she has some “big shoes to fill” in replacing past director Louise Hall, but is confident of the system and has enough experience to believe in a smooth transition.

She started in food service in 1984 as dietary aid/janitor at the Child Development Center in Rochester, N.H.

“I was very busy,” O’Leary said. “There were 100 students and I was the only person in the kitchen.

“I did it all and then washed the floors when I was done,” she said.

She moved on to the Durham Elementary School and then was food service director for SAD 43 (Rumford, Mexico, Roxbury and Byron).

O’Leary said having done jobs from mopping the floor to administrative duties gives her an appreciation for all the kitchen workers.

Now she is responsible for a program that had $1.146 million in revenues and $1.134 million in expenses last year.

She is also in charge of seeing that the food served daily to the more than 3,600 students represents a well-balanced, nutritious meal.

O’Leary sees her toughest job as feeding the high school students. She plans to have food such as chicken nuggets that are baked, not fried.

She wants to offer sandwich wraps and had introduced baked quiches to students in past schools.

“My theory is to try something new three times and if it doesn’t work take it off the menu,” O’Leary said.

As much as she has to deal with food she gets a respite at home, where her husband does most of the cooking.

“He’s a gourmet cook,” she said. “And I’m happy about that.”

jsmedley@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link