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Rosie Westerhoff standing outside one of the walk in freezers.

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The Lady of Lunch - Rosie Westerhoff

   There is a woman in Seward that almost all of the school students benefit from but only a small hand full know what her job is or even her name. I’m talking about Rosie Westerhoff, the dedicated lunch manager for all of Seward Public Schools. I went in early to the kitchen one morning last week to see her in her natural habitat and ask her a few questions. Every school day Rosie arrives at the High School at 5:45 a.m. to start preparing meals for the students in Seward area schools. Before Rosie goes home that day she organizes and serves over 1,185 hungry students from Seward High School, Seward Middle School, Seward Elementary School, Our Redeemer, and St. Vincent’s grade school. On weekdays Rosie has seven cooks working under her and 13 servers working at all of the different schools. To make her job even more stressful Rosie has to comply to strict state regulation giving the minimum serving size for each food in order for good nutrition yet if Rosie goes much above these amounts she will not have enough money for meals towards the end of the year. Under Rosie’s command are 2 walk in freezers, a walk in cooler, seven convection ovens, two warming cabinets, a pantry the size of a small apartment, and a rather large kitchen. Don’t think that this is an easy job at all, it takes some experience. Rosie has worked in the kitchens in Seward for 31 years now and has been the manager for 15. I really wanted to do this article because in all honesty Seward has a lot better food than many other schools and I wanted to make people aware of how big of a job Rosie Westerhoff has. So the next time you’re leaving the lunch room stop by the serving window and thank Rosie or any of the other lunch ladies and remember that in the 2008-2009 school year Rosie’s grocery list came out to total about $294,000, that number should be high enough to show you that they have a big job and that a thank you for the dedicated service isn’t too much to ask.

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