For the last 35 years, Sonya Claypool has been one of those smiling faces.

Claypool, the kitchen manager at Duncombe Elementary School, said she’s always been in the kitchen, even before she started at the schools all those years ago.

“I’ve done food service my whole life — that’s all I’ve ever done,” she said. “When I moved here from Minnesota, I got a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant.”

That’s when a co-worker noted Claypool really “knew her stuff” when it came to food and suggested she apply to work in the school kitchens.

“So that’s what I did,” she said. “I started out as a sub for four years and it just progressed from there. I went from serving kids to being the main cook and the main baker, and to being the head cashier to now being a manager.”

Claypool started with working at Fort Dodge Senior High, before moving to the former Phillips Middle School, where she stayed for many years. When Phillips and the former Fair Oaks Middle School merged and moved into the new Fort Dodge Middle School, she went with.

“I got to open the new middle school and I opened up this school,” she said, referring to when Duncombe was demolished and rebuilt into a brand-new building in 2018.

Claypool said a “good majority” of her memories come from the years she worked at the former Phillips Middle School. She said she really connected with the seventh and eighth graders who went through her line.

“And I hear through the past years ‘Phillips had the best food, Phillips had the best food,'” she said.

For much of her time working at the schools, food service staff were school district employees, she said. Now, they’re employed by Taher Inc., a chef-driven professional food management company contracted by the school district.

“Taher is doing a lot of home table meals, trying to get the kids into more than just the fast food,” Claypool said. “They want them to have good food. Like today, we have apples from the local apple orchard.”

Throughout the school year, Taher will bring in different producers to introduce students to new foods.

“It gives them the opportunity to try something they might not get to experience at home,” Claypool said. “So Taher’s brought a lot of those new things to see if we can get some kids to try a broader spectrum of foods.”

The best part of Claypool’s job, she said, is getting to know the students as they come through the lunch line.

“I love the kids,” she said. “They’re amazing. They come and they hug you and whatnot, and all the different foods you can talk them into trying, it gets them experiencing new things.”

Claypool said she also understands the impact she and the rest of the food service staff can have on those students.

“You might brighten up a kid’s day that has had a horrible day just because they saw you,” she said. “It brightens their day and they brighten my day.”

National School Lunch Week was Oct. 9-13. The weeklong observance celebrates healthy meals that are crucial for growing and learning children. On Friday, Claypool highlighted the importance of healthy, filling school lunches.

“To me, the school lunch programs are very important because a lot of kids, if they’re hungry and their stomachs are growling, they can’t think or concentrate on learning things,” she said. “A lot of the kids don’t get food at home. A lot of kids don’t get any kind of nutrition except what their family can afford, which might be a piece of toast or a peanut butter sandwich. These kids need food and it helps them grow and it grows their brain.”