OA is You: Joan Miller

You’ve probably met Joan Miller. Over the last 23 years, if you went to school here, worked here, or visited a special event here (such as the recent Grandparents’ Day at Apalachin Elementary where she made sure all the Grandmas and Grandpas had delicious wraps and OA’s homemade soups), her life touched yours.

Guaranteed she touched your life with a smile and a kind word, even if she might not have been feeling so great, lately, herself.

Joan – or Joanie, to those closest to her – will retire from her position as Owego Apalachin Food Services site manager for all the district’s cafeterias, at the close of this school year. Today she’s feeling pretty spry. But the last two-and-a-half years? No stroll in the park.

“I had both knees done, had a hip done,” Joan said, adding that she faced surgery for a thyroid issue along the way. She also beat breast cancer. But in typical Joan fashion, she was happy to gloss over such things, in a hurry to mention her staff and how much they mean to her. She calls them her girls – sometimes, her ladies. All except her boss, Tom Nunn, OA’s director of Food Services, of course.

“The girls, they’re great. They supported me so much through all that,” she said, recalling her physical struggles. “Even when I came back, they were always right there for me. But I’ll miss everybody. Some of them I’ve worked with 18 years, 16 years. And I’ll miss the kids, too. At the high school especially. I love the interaction with them, getting to know them.” 

“But I think I’m ready (to retire),” Joan said, admitting, with a knock on wood, that she’s in her best physical condition in several years. “At the same time, I don’t know if I want to leave all these ladies who work here – they really do such a great job and they make us all look good. But I know they will be just fine.”

“I don’t care what anybody says. I have the best girls from any district right here,” Joan added. “I’ll miss Tom (Nunn), too. He’s been great. He’s given me leeway to do just about anything I’ve wanted to in our cafeterias.”

Sandy Phillips came aboard at OA last August and has trained with Joan this school year. She takes over heading into next school year. Phillips previously was site manager for the food service operation at Tioga Schools.

The biggest changes in school meals over her tenure, said Joan, involved the reduced sodium content. She also mentioned the advent of “Rock on Café,” which in the Broome-Tioga BOCES region encompasses 15 school districts.

“The concept is a good one,” she said, “and it tries to offer healthier options. It makes the menus more consistent across all the area schools.”

Living in her Owego home since 1974, the same place she raised her OFA-graduate children, she has no desire to move any time soon.

“My kids would like me to downsize. They say the house is too big,” Joan said. “But when you’ve lived somewhere so long, that kind of thing is hard to consider.”

Big plans for retirement? Not at all, Joan said. She’ll travel to Florida shortly for a few weeks to visit family. 

“After that? We’ll figure it out. I have two grandchildren and another on the way,” she said. “My three kids live in Rochester, New York City and Florida, of course. But after this, I don’t know, honestly. I’d like to work somewhere maybe three or four hours a day, but I’m not sure where at this point.”