Kathryn Hales relaxes in retirement - Wayne-Wilson News Leader, Fremont, NC

2 August 2007 — If you attended elementary school in the northern part of Wayne County during the past 20 years, chances are you’ve encountered Kathryn Hales.

The chances are also pretty high that, should you bump into Kathryn around town, she will remember something you may have forgotten years ago – your lunch number.

At the end of this past school year, Kathryn retired as the cafeteria manager at Fremont STARS. She has been serving lunch to students in the area for 23 years, and has been at Fremont for the past seven years.

Before she began working as a cafeteria member, Kathryn said she did some work in various factories. But most of her life, she said, she’s worked in a kitchen.

“Cooking’s been my main thing for most of my life,” she said. “I’ve worked in nursing homes, restaurants, and the schools.”

She started out at Nahunta School in 1983, and worked in the cafeteria there for seven years. She spent one year at Pikeville School before it closed, then moved to Northwest Elementary the next year.

Her next move, a year later, took her to Northeast Elementary, where she worked for seven years. In 1998, she was promoted from cafeteria staff to cafeteria manager.

In 2000, Kathryn made the move to Fremont, where she has worked for the past seven school years.

Like many in the service industry, Kathryn says she’s always enjoyed the people side of things, and the work she has done at the elementary schools. But the aspect of her career she enjoyed most was her interactions with the students.

As a cafeteria worker, she had the opportunity to interact with all the kids in school every day. She also had the chance to watch many grow up, from their first day in kindergarten to their last year before moving on to middle school.

Kathryn said the chance to work with the kids was always the main reason for doing what she did.

“There is one at Fremont, from the first day she started in Pre-K, she would always come and give me a hug every day,” she said. “It’s thinks like that that always stick out with you.”

Because she lives in Pikeville, she said she often runs into kids who went to schools where she worked. Kathryn says she doesn’t always remember names of students, since she saw several hundred each day. However, she said that when she’s out in Fremont or Pikeville, she often sees familiar faces.

“There’s a lot of kids, especially from Fremont, that I can look at them and remember their number, but I couldn’t tell you their name,” she said with a laugh.

Kathryn is a native of Wayne County, and has lived in this area her whole life. She attended Nahunta, Eureka, and Pikeville schools when she was younger. Later on, she earned her GED at Wayne Community College.

She and her husband Dean live in Pikeville. They have one daughter, Tracy Hohnrhine, who lives in Wayne County. Kathryn also has “a sort of adopted” daughter, Latisha Brown, who lives in Louisburg. She and George also have four grandchildren – Taylor, Jacob, and Noah Hohnrhine, and Tara Brown.

Upon entering retirement, Kathryn says that she thinks she will miss both the kids and her co-workers at Fremont.

“I had some real good co-workers,” she said. “I’m definitely going to miss them all.”

But what she won’t miss, she said, is all the paperwork that came along with her job.

And Kathryn won’t be without the energy and excitement that kids bring for too long. She said she plans on spending her new-found free time with her grandchildren, who stay at her house during the day. She also intends to spend more time with her friends and other family members.

Kathryn is also involved in church activities; she is a member of Pleasant Grove Free Will Baptist Church in Pikeville. She is not a member of any specific organization at the church, but says she enjoys devoting her efforts wherever they are most needed.

As school starts back at Fremont in the next few weeks, Kathryn’s absence from the cafeteria will likely be noticed with some sadness by staff and students alike. However, Kathryn says as much as she’s going to miss the people of the school, she plans to relax and enjoy the time she now has to spend with her family.

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