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Willie Thompson has been a fixture in the Emory & Henry College cafeteria where by he has labored for many years.
Never missed a day of operate
Thompson was hired as a breakfast cook dinner in 1963 at the age of 27, and he’s been there at any time due to the fact.
Amazingly, he’s never missed a working day of operate and he’s only been late to perform one particular time and that was the morning the Glade Spring location was hit by a twister in 2011.
A consultant of Sodexo foodstuff company, Thompson is semi-retired now, only performing two days just about every 7 days.
“One of these days, I’ll have to give it up. I’m finding previous. I’m searching to retire before long, but I really do not know when,” Thompson mentioned, glancing at his wife of 59 decades, Lillian, who’s by now retired.
“Everybody’s retired but me,” he mentioned with a grin.
Thompson was born in 1937 in Jenkinsville, South Carolina, where by he and his 5 siblings ended up raised by their mothers and fathers.
Right after graduating from large faculty in 1956, he drove his 1955 Chevrolet to New Jersey, wherever two of his uncles lived. Thompson identified perform at Overlook Healthcare Center in Summit, New Jersey, where he took his first career as a chef.
“Nowadays, you go to culinary school to be a chef. My trainer was my mother.”
Thompson said his mother fried the greatest chicken, even even though she experienced to wring the chicken’s neck to destroy it. Chef Willie is fondly remembered by E&H alumni for his very own well-known mate hen.
