BUTLER TWP — There was something special on the lunch menu Thursday in the Butler Senior High School cafeteria.

The flowers and balloons around her cashier’s station and the well wishes and congratulations of the tray-carrying students gave it away: After 42 years, cafeteria cashier Darlene Sloboda was turning in her hair net and retiring.

Sloboda, 72, of Boyers not only spent 42 years working in the cafeteria, but as a Butler High graduate she ate there as well. She said she met her husband, Rocco, in the cafeteria, too.

She’s one of 22 cashiers, servers and cooks at the high school serving 680 to 700 lunches during three 30-minute lunch periods, and 250 to 280 breakfasts each day.

“I started when I was 30,” she said. “I was part-time at first, then I was hired full-time.”

Sloboda has worked as a cashier and on the serving line for a time.

“I’ve never made food. When COVID came, I helped package up lunches,” she said.

Just because the school lunches are free in the days of the pandemic, and students swipe or punch in their own ID numbers doesn’t mean Sloboda’s job is any less demanding.

She’s responsible for keeping track of meals sold, and adding and subtracting money from students’ meal accounts, collecting cash and turning it in at the end of the lunch period.

She estimated on a busy day she rings up nearly 330 lunches. Two other cashiers work the lunch crowd.

Her co-worker, Jody Yohe, was trained to be a cashier by Sloboda and said she’s the best. “She has two lanes (at her cashier’s station). We only have one. She’s going to be missed,” Yohe said.

Sloboda said the lunches passing through her station have changed over the years.

“Back in the day, there used to be cake for dessert. Pudding was an option. They could purchase doughnuts,” she said, adding at one point a cafeteria worker’s sole job was to make doughnuts for the lunch crowd.

“That’s no longer the case. They went for healthier meals for the kids,” she said.

These days, a school lunch at Butler High is a main dish, two vegetables, two fruits and milk. If students don’t like what’s on the menu, they have the option to buy chicken sandwiches or pizza.

She said some current popular lunch items are Italian dunkers, pizza strips that can be dipped in marinara sauce; chicken bowls, containing chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, cheese and gravy; and a rice bowl topped with barbecued chicken.

For herself, Sloboda said she really liked the barbecued pork sandwiches.

Felicia Fleming, the cafeteria manager, was also trained by Sloboda as a cashier when Fleming began in the cafeteria 16 years ago.

“She was my trainer when I started as a cashier. She’s been our lead trainer as a cashier for many, many years,” said Fleming.

“She’s dependable. She never misses work. She’s probably one of the nicest people. The kids love her,” said Fleming.

“She’s really good with interacting with the kids,” she added. “She’s going to be a hard one to replace.”

That seemed to be proved during the final lunch period Thursday when student after student wished Sloboda a happy retirement on her final day in the cafeteria.

“I’ve gotten to know some of the students by their names,” she said.

“The students were great. These kids, I can’t say enough about them,” she added.

For her, the cafeteria was more than a workplace.

“I met my husband in this very cafeteria,” Sloboda said. “We dated through high school.”

“Working in the cafeteria was great when my sons (Michael, Brian and Aaron) were small. I was home when they left for school and I was home when they came back,” she said. “They didn’t even know I had a job.”

When they became high school students, she said, “It was great, I would see them every day.”

But Thursday she was working the cash register for the last time. When she rang up her last student, sophomore Jacob Fallecker, and presented him with a small sign naming him the last checkout of her 42-year career and entitling him to $1.50 in food, the cafeteria broke out in applause.