Former and Current USDA Personnel and Officials

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  Shirley Watkins Bowden

  Shirley Watkins Bowden and Institute of Child Nutrition

  Shirley Watkins served as Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services at the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1997 – 2001, the first African-American woman to hold that position. Prior to that she was Director of Child Nutrition Programs for Memphis City Schools for seventeen years. She served as president of ASFSA from 1988 – 1989. She now works with Southern Educational Services, a consulting business concerned primarily with environment friendly school food service cafeteria operations.

  Shirley Watkins Bowden sat for an update to her oral history interview with Jeffrey Boyce on May 22, 2014, at the National Food Service Management Institute while she was participating in a seminar covering the first twenty-five years of the Institute’s operations. This update is included at the end of the interview.

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  Four Past-Presidents

  Bowens Martin Caldwell Nix and Institute of Child Nutrition

  Oral History interview with American School Food Service Association Past-Presidents (now the School Nutrition Association), Shirley Watkins Bowden, Dorothy Caldwell, Josephine Martin, and Mary Nix, regarding the founding of the National Food Service Management Institute (now the Institute of Child Nutrition), May 21, 2014, at the National Food Service Management Institute (now the ICN), The University of Mississippi.

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  Dorothy Caldwell

  Dorothy Caldwell and Institute of Child Nutrition

  After teaching home economics for two years, and then taking several years off to raise her five children, Dorothy Caldwell spent twenty years as food service director for Marianna, Arkansas schools. She then worked as the state director of child nutrition for the Arkansas Department of Education for another decade, serving as the president of the School Nutrition Association toward the end of this period. After a brief retirement Dorothy was recruited to come to USDA in Washington, DC, to work in Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services for another four years.

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  Bob Eadie

  Bob Eadie and Institute of Child Nutrition

  Robert M. (Bob) Eadie served as Chief of the Policy and Program Development Branch, Child Nutrition Division, of the USDA Food and Nutrition Service. This branch is responsible for publishing regulations that deal with the National School Lunch, the Child Care Food Program, the Summer Program, the Special Milk Program, and other Child Nutrition Programs. They write regulations, issue policy interpretations, and provide guidance, materials, handbooks, instructions, and anything necessary for a state agency or a school district to have in their hands to operate the program. Mr. Eadie was “an Army brat.” His father was a military officer and the family moved frequently, ending up in New Jersey. After graduating from college in 1973, he started working with the USDA Food and Nutrition Service in what was then the Northeast Regional Office, which included the middle Atlantic and most of the New England states, in Princeton Junction, New Jersey.

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  Alberta Frost

  Alberta Frost and Institute of Child Nutrition

  Alberta Frost has worked for the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service since 1967. She started out working in the Food Stamp Program for several years before moving into child nutrition programs. She has in fact worked in all of the FNS programs at some point or another, including food distribution, child nutrition, and the WIC Program.

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  Stan Garnett

  Stan Garnett and Institute of Child Nutrition

  Stan Garnett grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. He served in the Peace Corps and worked for the Catholic Relief Service early in his career. He joined the United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service in 1971 and worked in child nutrition programs there for thirty-six years. He retired as the Director of Child Nutrition Programs in December 2007. Stan is currently the Executive Director of the Global Nutrition Foundation.

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  Louise Lepeze

  Louise Lepeze and Institute of Child Nutrition

  After several years of working as a nutritionist in hospitals Louise Lepeze joined the Louisiana Department of Education child nutrition programs as an Area Supervisor in 1980. She later became the Section Chief. Lepeze left the state in 1991 to join USDA at the Southwest Regional Office in Dallas as the Net Coordinator, Nutrition Education and Training Program. She has been back in Baton Rouge since 2005, working for USDA in the area of School Meals Initiative.

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  Clare Miller

  Clare Miller and Institute of Child Nutrition

  Clare Miller spent her career first working for the Louisiana State Department of Education as an Area Supervisor before becoming the Food Service Director for the Diocese of Lafayette. She then went to work for the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington, DC, from where she retired.

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  Jeannie Sneed

  Jeannie Sneed and Institute of Child Nutrition

  Jeannie Sneed is a former director of the Applied Research Division of the National School Food Service Management Institute. Sneed now holds a position in the USDA Food Safety unit.