Published: June 28, 2008 12:57 am            

PEOPLE PROFILE: Betty Worth, Starpoint cafeteria worker

CAMBRIA — It’s been almost half a century — but if you ask Betty Werth, it doesn’t feel that long.

Werth, a Cambria resident, has been serving food and monitoring children in the cafeteria at Starpoint Middle School since 1958.

“To be very honest, it doesn’t seem like 49 years,” she said. “I enjoy it.”

Werth grew up in Sanborn and moved to Cambria with her husband, Leo, about 50 years ago. Her daughter, Darlene, and son, Douglas, graduated from Starpoint in the classes of 1970 and 1969, respectively.

When the kids were young, Werth was looking for a job when her neighbor, who worked at Starpoint, told her about the position in the middle school cafeteria.

Werth had been a substitute teacher several times previously. She applied and was hired Oct. 1, 1958.

Back then, the food was mostly all homemade for the more than 400 kids who ate lunch there.

“Our spaghetti, believe it or not, the sauce was simmered all night,” she said. “They had French bread, cheese, meatballs. We had all homemade desserts.”

Now, much of the food is still made on-site at Starpoint High School and then brought to the middle school.

A lot has changed since then, including the price of the food, and the kids, themselves — though Werth said the students are mostly well-behaved.

“Society has changed, so that the kids have changed ... (but) 99 percent of them are good kids,” she said.

Sometimes, she sees the generations go through.

“They’ll say to me, ‘You were here when my mom was here, or my dad was here,’ ” she said, adding she’s even seen some grandkids of former students.

She said she plans to go back next year to make it to her 50th anniversary — but she doesn’t have any plans beyond that, saying she’ll return “if the good Lord’s with me.”

“The teachers are great, the secretaries, everyone’s really, really great,” she said. “It’s a nice place to work.”

Contact reporter April Amadon at 439-9222, ext. 6251.

        

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