Alva Review-Courier -

Students like to eat. Whether a student is well fed can affect their academic performance.

At Burlington Schools, students have the opportunity to eat and enjoy two meals a day thanks to the awesome cafeteria staff.

New this year is Rhonda Pinkston as the head cook. Rhonda says that she has enjoyed cooking for almost all of her life. It began at around age 6 when she would stand at the stove and help her mother cook meals. She started institutional cooking as a young adult and has worked at hospitals, nursing homes, prisons and a Burger King.

She enjoys cooking at Burlington because she says it is a much slower and less stressful job than some of the other places she has worked. Rhonda's favorite thing to do is bake – and after that, eat the baked goods she prepared.

Our other cook, Cheryl Czerniak, who is a retired nurse, has enjoyed cooking all her life. Starting out as the oldest girl of eight children, she enjoyed cooking for her siblings. She says the best part of her job is seeing the kids every day, even if some of them are pretty picky.

I know I can speak for the rest of the Burlington school when I say that we are extremely grateful for Rhonda and Cheryl, and look forward to breakfast and lunch for the rest of the year.