Kathy Farris and her husband, Gerald, are pictured with their children and grandchildren/Submitted Photo
While the Mountain Home Education Foundation was unable to host its annual Hall of Honor induction ceremony last fall due to COVID-19, the Foundation’s Board of Directors did induct two retired Mountain Home Public Schools employees into the 2020 Hall of Honor.
The 2020 Earnest Perry Retired Staff Honoree is Kathy Farris, a longtime cook and cafeteria manager at Mountain Home High School.
Farris went to work in school kitchens as a way to make some money while having a similar schedule to her school-aged children. While she had always enjoyed cooking, she had no idea what she was getting into when she joined the Mountain Home Kindergarten cafeteria staff in 1981.
Farris quickly saw that she had a lot to learn.
She was accustomed to feeding her family of five, but feeding hundreds of hungry children every day was a feat in and of itself. Having never been one to back down from a challenge, Farris mastered the art of feeding the masses and transitioned from working in the Kindergarten kitchen, to becoming the baker at the high school, to eventually managing the high school’s cafeteria.
Farris was raised in Clarkridge, as was her husband, Gerald. She and Gerald graduated from Mountain Home High School in 1972 and married soon after. Today they live in a home they built on his family’s homeplace, which happens to be just a stone’s throw away from hers. They worship at a small church across the highway and love to spend time with their children and grandchildren. Theirs is a life built on faith, love, and lots of hard work – including the 13 years Farris spent in the school cafeterias.
than I expected. When you think about working in the school kitchen you just think about opening cans and dishing it out, but there was a lot more to it – a lot more documentation. Of course, when things are affiliated with the government, there’s a lot of bookkeeping that is involved. You have to document how many students you serve and what you serve them. The amount of reimbursable meals has to equal out to what the government gives you.”
She had the opportunity to learn new techniques and information from vendors and other providers during her time in the school kitchens.
Farris recalls, “At that time we did a lot of cooking classes. Vendors would put on classes that you could go to. Something I had never heard of before was a can cutting. A can cutting involved food brokers wanting to make a pitch for what they were selling, so they would open a can to see how many servings were really in each can. If you’re just cooking for a family, that kind of thing might not make that big of a difference, but when you’re serving thousands of children, those extra servings really add up.”
Farris was managing the high school cafeteria when the new (current) cafeteria was constructed. She says, “That was a time of great expectations. We had all this new space and all that new equipment. We were just elated until we realized how much time it would take to sweep and mop it every day.”
Kathy Farris learns to debone a turkey during a training in the Mountain Home High School kitchen in the 1980s.
Before moving to the new cafeteria, Farris had a front row seat to the infamous Mountain Home High School food fight of the mid-80s. Stories still circulate today about this event, and it’s tough to get a straight answer from anyone about who was responsible.
Farris recalls, “My friend Judy Dibble and I were serving out in the hamburger line and Judy said, ‘Kathy, there’s something going on,'” she said. “She told me, ‘There’s some of these kids who never eat lunch here, and some of them are buying two trays.’ It wasn’t three minutes until the lights went out, and there was chaos. Somebody finally got their senses together and turned the lights on. Everybody was just kind of in shock. There was food on the ceiling, food on the tables where the teachers sat. I don’t know what provoked it. I guess just kids being kids. We cleaned it up as rapidly as we could, of course.”
A handful of high school boys were blamed for the event, but Farris has suspicions that many more were involved. “I don’t know if somebody ratted on them or if they just took the blame, but I know it wasn’t just three or four boys. They couldn’t have accomplished that big mess on their own in that short of time. They had to work in the kitchen for a week or so as punishment. I’m sure they wouldn’t want their names broadcasted, so it’s probably good that I can’t remember their names.”
Farris says the students and her colleagues in the kitchen were her favorite parts of the job, “They were hard working women. They loved kids and wanted to please them. Some of the kids, we all just wanted to take them home and feed them and love them. Your heart breaks for them. The school is called upon to cure all the ills nowadays – social and home – and that’s not what school was initially meant for.”
Students who attended MHHS anytime in the past several decades have probably had a delicious cinnamon roll from the cafeteria. Chili and cinnamon roll day is still a fan favorite among students and faculty members. People have often referred to the sweet treats as “Mrs. Kathy’s Cinnamon Rolls,” but she made it known that the recipe for those rolls was provided by the child nutrition department. According to Farris, there’s nothing particularly special about the recipe, but many would argue that the love she included as a secret ingredient made her cinnamon rolls second to none.
Those interested in learning more about the work of the Mountain Home Education Foundation may visit MountainHomeEducationFoundation.org. Donations can be made in honor of Farris by clicking the donate button on the site or through mail to 2465 Rodeo Drive in Mountain Home.
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