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EDEN — Bernadette Austin estimates she has planned 11,000 breakfast and lunch menus, serving some 87 million children, in the more than 31 years she has worked in food nutrition. That’s 23 million breakfasts and 64 million lunches.

Those days of planning will end Dec. 21 when the Rockingham County Schools break for the Christmas holidays. Austin is retiring Dec. 31.

“I am so appreciative and thankful that the school board gave me the opportunity, trusted me and had confidence in me to fulfill this job,” the South Carolina native said. “Not only did it provide a livelihood for me and my family, it gave me the opportunity to meet so many people I will never forget.

“The people I work with are not only my working associates, they are also members of my extended family,” Austin said.

When she entered N.C. A&T in 1968, Austin enrolled in the nursing program. Two years into that program, Austin said she was assigned to the geriatrics ward.

“A lot of those people died,” she recalled. “I found myself crying and getting so emotionally attached, I decided there’s no way I can do this.”

Fortunately, the nursing and nutrition programs incorporated many of the same programs. It was an easy switch.

Her grandmother had been a chef at a resort hotel in Ocean City, N.J., so, as a child, Austin learned a lot about cooking. During her college studies, memories of things learned in her grandmother’s kitchens came back to her.

Austin’s first job was as patient care dietitian at Duke Hospital in Durham. In 1974, she accepted a similar job at Wesley Long Hospital in Greensboro.

Six years later, Austin decided she was not happy in hospital administration. She had small children and working weekends was a huge problem for her. A friend who was an A&T professor told Austin about a child nutrition supervisory position with the Greensboro City Schools. She accepted the job.

Nearly nine years later, she met Reidsville Schools Assistant Superintendent Penny Barham, who encouraged Austin to apply for child nutrition director with that school system. Again, she got the job.

When the four county school systems merged in 1993, Austin became nutrition director of the consolidated system.

Although her main job was to plan nutritious meals following government guidelines, Austin reached out to the students themselves and children in summer recreational programs throughout the county.

She also taught parents about nutrition at programs sponsored by the school system and through grants from the Annie Penn Foundation.

Often when students studied different types of food, Austin prepared trays of fruits and vegetables they may never have seen or tasted before. She also conducted nutrition fairs across the county, introducing students to a variety of fruits and vegetables — many of them exotic.

“The contact I have had with many, many children over the years has been so memorable,” she said. “I still have letters that have been written to me by children when I have gone into the classrooms to give nutrition demonstrations.”

Now that she is retiring, Austin hopes to spend more time with her children — Jerri, Scotty and Jaimey — and her four grandchildren, Alexis, 16; Briaynna, 14; Amiri, 13; and Jordyn, 3.

“I will never forget the lives I have touched and the friendships I have made,” Austin said.

“As I retire, I would like to thank all of the Rockingham County School Nutrition Department managers .... (and) all other employees of the system I have worked with, and particularly William “Bill” Holcomb who has supported and believed in me all the way and who gave me an opportunity to not only have a job, but to have a career.

“I want to be remembered by the people I worked with as one who sat among them and not above them,” Austin said. “I always tried to put myself in their shoes and tried to handle situations first with my heart and then my head.”

Reidsville native Ann Fish has lived in Eden since 1979. Contact her at annsomersfish@yahoo.com.