When I was growing up in Pampa, I had an older brother who played high school Harvester football. These were in the years of 1947 and 1948, and Pampa had some really great teams. Naturally, I went to all the games with my parents and cheered our team on to victory. I was 10 years old at the time.
Now here is something you didn’t know…after the game and after the players showered and got dressed, they went over to the cafeteria where the cooks had prepared sandwiches, hamburgers and hot dogs, with chips and soft drinks!
My brother took me with him one night after the game and I got to eat a hotdog and drink a coke. I thought I had “died and gone to heaven,” as I sat there at the table with all my heroes. That’s when I first met Mrs. Kilgore, who was the head cook.
Wellsir, fast forward to 1953 when I’m a sophomore and started eating in our cafeteria and I was always asking the cooks for a second dip of mashed potatoes or beans or whatever! After a while, they would give me two meats, one hidden by the potatoes and then the meat you could see…but I was always still hungry! By now, I knew the names of all the cooks including Mrs Kilgore.
One day, as I was leaving the cafeteria, Mrs. Kilgore came up to E Jay, my best friend, and me and said “How would you two like to work the two windows taking up the trays and after you finish, you can eat with us…ALL YOU CAN EAT FOR FREE!” Wow! You’re not serious? So, to make a long story short, E Jay and I sat around the island in the kitchen with the cooks and had ourselves 2nds and 3rds of their great food, including cakes and pies and cobblers. Man oh man, we really “pigged out!” But due to basketball, I never gained a pound!
I ran across this page about our high school cafeteria in my ‘54 annual and it reminded me of these great ladies and all the fun we had in our PHS kitchen. I hope those ladies have a “star in their crown” for taking good care of E Jay and me!
