Cooking and connecting with a crowd

Every morning, Clara Sipple and five other cooks get up early to prepare food for the masses. Clara works as a school cook in the Gallatin R-5 School District.

“We get there about 6:30 every morning to start getting breakfast ready for the kids,” Clara says. “After we serve breakfast we get started on lunch.”

Some days the cooks have pre-prepared meals on the menu; other times it’s homemade foods, like sloppy joes, chili and pizza burgers. It takes both planning and improvisation to please the children and the adults on the school staff.

“We have to be very careful as we have some kids with allergies to some foods,” Clara says. “We work as a team to make sure everything is done right and ready for the kids by 11 a.m. We have a fresh salad bar every day for them as well.”

Clara was born in Chillicothe to Jim and Florence Tucker and raised in Jameson. She graduated from North Daviess R-3 in 1998 as salutatorian.

Clara started as a substitute cook at Gallatin in September of 2015 and went full-time in January 2016. She works mostly at the grade school, but occasionally she can be found in the high school kitchen. Stephanie Lollar is the kitchen manager and there are five other cooks.

“I love working at the school and really enjoy some of the stories the kids tell,” she says. “Overall, it is a great work environment and I work with great people.”

Patience and diplomacy are required for the job. Parents pay close attention to what their children eat during the day. But Clara finds most parents are more supportive than critical.

“For the most part they are easy to get along with,” she says. “We have some parents that come in and eat with the grade school kids. We also have lunch buddies that come in and eat lunch with kids that might not have someone to come in to eat with them.”

Clara has been married to Greg Sipple for 10 years. They have six children: Zach Sipple, Holli (married to James Scott), Andrew Moulin, Jacklyn Maize, Jacob Maize and Addyson Sipple; and two granddaughters. All but Jacob and Addyson are out on their own. Jacob is a junior at GHS and Addyson is in eighth grade at Gallatin R-5 Middle School.

Raising her own six kids, Clara had plenty of practical high-volume kitchen know-how before becoming a school cook. She knew how to peel lots and lots of potatoes at top speed. Still, the job offers a few surprises.

“The amount of food we fix is surprising,” Clara says, “as well as the things some kids say while going through the lunch line.”

One perk about working at a school involves holiday breaks and summer recess. But Clara just keeps on working. She is employed at Elbert’s Department Store after she gets off work at the school as well as during the summertime. Thus, her normal work hours are from 6:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

It’s a lot of time on her feet. She doesn’t complain …except maybe on truck day.

“The biggest negative to my job would be truck day,” she says. “With a government truck and a delivery truck arriving the same day, that means lots of freezer time and I don’t like the cold very well.”

But Clara says the benefits far outweigh the negatives.

“I’m able to take off for my own kids if I need to and I’m able to be there for their sports,” she says. “The biggest benefit of my job is that I’m able to be there for all of the kids and make them feel that they really are loved.”