It didn’t make the nightly news, but to Julie Holbrook that made it no less an atrocity. A half-dozen commercial pizzas in grease-stained boxes had shown up in one of her school cafeterias, along with two jugs of Coke.
The new soccer coach who purchased them didn’t know. He was just trying to ingratiate himself to his young charges. No one had told him that in the seven North Country school districts with 4,000 students under Holbrook’s watch, sugar and processed foods are as welcome as a snapping turtle in a nursery.
Holbrook can laugh about it now—almost. She had been trying to steer the kids away from the pizza to the colorful fresh vegetables on her salad bar, but there were no takers. It was the beginning of the school year and “they didn’t know to be afraid of me,” she said with a hint of disappointment. Ruffling feathers is part of her job.
Holbrook, 57, a resident of Keene, is shared
