Wish Granted: Du Quoin Student Who Asked for Yogurt in Cafeteria Gets It!

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Somewhere between the weighty discussions of a new $18 million high school, four-day summer work weeks and school funding during a Dist. 300 board meeting last May a very special then-9-year-old third grader stepped up to the plate and hit a home run for kids everywhere.

Kylie Gregory, daughter of Mark and Paige Gregory of Du Quoin--now a fourth grader--was a student in Mrs. Bookstaver's class at the time. She gave to Mrs. Bookstaver a letter written to the "Cafeteria Ladies" at her school. The letter picked up traction quickly and was signed by other students in her class. Principal Peg Pursell and cafeteria workers themselves fell in love with the challenge.

It reads simply: "Dear Cafeteria Ladies. My class would like to know if you can serve frozen yogurt for lunch and breakfast. We respect your decisions, but could you serve yogurt or frozen yogurt next year. I think the whole school would like frozen yogurt. So please say 'yes', but if you can't that is all right. We know you are in budget cuts."

Cafeteria supervisor Judy Payne and members of the staff came to the board meeting to begin dialogue about better variety in the cafeterias.

It became a work in progress.

Last week, Kylie's wish was granted as frozen yogurt along with bags of grapes, sliced apples and oranges were introduced to the Du Quoin elementary school menu. "They came to me and wanted to have frozen yogurt," said Payne this morning.

"It went over real well. A lot of schools offer it, but we hadn't thought of it," she said. "It's not cheap, but compared to other things and the fact that we receive some other government processed commodities, we will be okay on it," she said. Payne retires in May as the food services director after 21 years. In the kids' eyes, she will retire a hero.

"We are going to try some new things," says Judy. We have to follow the state's guidelines she said. French fries have been cut back to about once every three weeks instead of every week. Dip will be offered with fruit.

She said she hopes the next generation of food services staff continues this trend.