While eating lunch in the commons one day at Apollo High School, then student Katy Reno said to herself that she would work in the Apollo kitchen one day. A couple of decades later, her dream came true. Now, as first cook at Apollo, she looks back on a career of cooking, with the majority of those years feeding students.
“I got hired … in 1999 to work in the kitchen [at Apollo],” remembers Reno. “I started doing the fruit … moved up to the deep fryer, then I was an acting second cook for a couple of years. It became permanent. The first cook retired, and I stepped into her place.”
After graduating from Apollo High School in 1977, Reno attended St. Cloud Area Vocational Technical Institute (now known as St. Cloud Technical and Community College) for industrial cooking. She then moved to Montana shortly after finishing school. She cooked in various restaurants and eventually met her husband. They moved back to Minnesota, and when their first child arrived, she decided to stay home. For 12 years, she was a stay-at-home mom to her two sons (who are also Apollo High School graduates).
“My passion for cooking came from my father,” smiles Reno. “He was the executive chef at the VA Hospital. I always wanted to do industrial cooking.”
Reno comes from a family of 10. Food and family dinners were an important part of her upbringing. All her siblings know how to cook.
“My grandmother was also a baker,” says Reno. “She would bring goods to the cattle barn … on auction days. My father got it [his passion for cooking] from her. He was a cook in the service.”
Reno says she learned how to deal with people – the customer service side of the industry – from her father. It helped her immensely during her time cooking in restaurants.
By 1999, Reno was ready to get back in the kitchen. The timing was perfect. There was an opening at Apollo and she jumped at the opportunity.
“He [Reno’s father] died in ’99,” shares Reno, “but he did get to see me go back into the kitchen.”
Food preparation comes natural to Reno; although, she finds it more challenging these days to know how much to prepare, nutritional facts and accommodations for diet. She typically feeds 1,000 students a day at Apollo. Her favorite meal to cook and serve students is turkey and gravy over biscuits.
This year put a wrench in things, but in a good way. With students in distance learning, meal preparation was in many ways easier. Head cooks collaborated at several schools which allowed them to be more creative and share ideas. Kitchen staff found themselves doing more meal packaging instead of meal prep. With Reno’s own kitchen closed, she was able to observe and manage more than a typical year. She worked with Madison Elementary School‘s kitchen to assist, order food and help manage staff. It was one of the few sites open for families to pick up meals for their students during distance learning.
“It was an adjustment on how much to order,” explains Reno. “Not so much what we had to order. It was a little more challenging in some ways because I really had to order for two days because they had the same menu on Monday/Tuesday and Wednesday/Thursday. It was a huge adjustment. It’s all in the calculations.”
She’s thrilled students are back in school, and she and her staff are back in their kitchen.
These days as she reflects on her career, she can’t help but smile. She is exactly where she wanted to be when she imagined running the Apollo kitchen all those years ago as a young woman.
“I went to school here and I wanted to work here,” she says.
Fun Facts:
- Reno loves coloring.
- She also makes ornaments for her lunch ladies and family members. She’s quite the crafter.
- Reno has eight grandchildren and three great grandchildren. Some live nearby (and, of course, attend St. Cloud Area School District 742.)
- Reno has passed down her passion for cooking to her kids and grandkids. Her son went to culinary school, and she loves to bake with her grandkids.
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