{"id":5626,"date":"2016-06-10T16:25:58","date_gmt":"2016-06-10T21:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/?p=5626"},"modified":"2020-03-11T11:53:30","modified_gmt":"2020-03-11T16:53:30","slug":"walter-d-williams-jr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/oral-history-project\/walter-d-williams-jr\/","title":{"rendered":"Walter D. Williams, Jr."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Interviewee<\/strong>: Walter D. Williams, Jr.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Interviewer<\/strong>: Jeffrey Boyce<\/p>\n<p><strong>Date<\/strong>: February 17, 2016<\/p>\n<p><strong>Location: <\/strong>Anchorage, Alaska<\/p>\n<p><strong>Description<\/strong>: Walter D. Williams, Jr. school nutrition specialist in Alaska.<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-shortcode\"><iframe title=\"Walter D. Williams Jr.\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/229123128?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><strong>Jeffrey Boyce<\/strong>: I\u2019m Jeffrey Boyce and it is February 17, 2016. I\u2019m here at the Alaska School Nutrition Association in Anchorage with Walter Williams. Good morning Walter and thanks for taking the time to talk with me today.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Walter D. Williams, Jr<\/strong>.: Good morning.<a href=\"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Williams.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-6429\" src=\"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Williams-234x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"288\" srcset=\"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Williams-234x300.jpg 234w, https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Williams-768x983.jpg 768w, https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Williams-800x1024.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Could we begin by you telling me a little bit about yourself, where you were born and where you grew up?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: I was actually born in Selma, Alabama, spent one month there, and was transported to Orlando, Florida. I was born the 16th of January, 1959. I am a grandfather. There are four of us still living, Walter D. Williams, Jr., and my dad, and I have a grandson all the way to the fourth of us, Walter D. Williams, IV, and nine grandkids, all total.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Are they here in Alaska?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: One more to be born to make ten, so that will be five grandkids in Alaska and five in the Seattle, Washington, area.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Where did you go to elementary school, and was there a lunch program there?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: Yes there was, Eccleston Elementary in Orlando, Florida; it still exists. There was a lunch program back in \u201965, thirty-five cents for your lunch back then.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Do you remember some of your favorite menu items?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: I kind of liked the bread pudding. I liked the Sloppy Joes back then.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB:<\/strong> I remember those. Tell me about your educational background. Where did you go to school?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: I actually went to Maynard Evans High, same school that Darryl Dawkins graduated from. I went to Carver Junior High for my middle school. I did attend Troy University. But my military background, security police for my first four years in the Air Force, and then my last sixteen years was nutrition medicine service in the Air Force. I retired 1 August of \u201997, so I stayed twenty years and eighteen days in the U.S. Air Force.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Where were you stationed?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW:<\/strong> I was stationed Lakenheath, England, Kirkland, New Mexico, Tampa, Florida, and then to Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis, New Mexico, and then there to Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina, and then Kunsan Air Base in Korea, and then made my way here to J-Bear now, but back then it was Elmendorf, back in October of \u201992. The last twenty months before retiring I was sent to Wilford Hall at Lackland Air Force Base, the same base that I took my boot camp at, and retired and chose to come back to Anchorage. So I got back here 15 July of \u201997.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Well how did you get involved in the child nutrition profession?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: Actually I never even thought I would work for a school district. I was working on the North Slope here in Alaska in the oil field, and I was on duty one Sunday, and me and a guy that were working together and were just looking at classifieds, and they had an ad in there that was saying that they wanted a nutrition specialist in Dillingham, Alaska. And he said, \u201cYou know, I know you don\u2019t want to continue to work out here in the oil field out in the middle of nowhere. Just send your resume to the school district that\u2019s enquiring for a nutrition specialist just to see if you get a bite on your resume.\u201d I said, \u201cOK, I\u2019ll do that.\u201d And I sent it in, and we have changed out on Mondays, and on a Tuesday morning I got a phone call from Southwest Region School District in Dillingham, Alaska, and it sounded real interesting, and it was a state job too. And back then it was taking four to five years to even get into the system. And I said if I can just go to bush Alaska I probably can get in there quickly. So out of twenty-six people interviewed I narrowed it down to six, and then I was the candidate that was chosen. I did have that background in nutrition medicine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: And what\u2019s your title, what were you hired as?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: I was hired as a nutrition specialist. I worked closely with registered dietitians in the Air Force, and a lot of people that were applying for the job were just cooks, but I had the background working with dietitians. I could do the mathematics of calorie count and things like that, so that gave me an edge. And then I had my documentation of doing it for sixteen years in the U.S. Air Force.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: What did you do while you were doing it in the Air Force? What were some of your duties there?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: Some of our job duties were we took regular food and modified it to accommodate diabetics, people with high blood pressure, sodium restricted, different special diets. So that was the edge I had on most people, that I could modify regular food. Take the salt content out, and I know what to do to keep the flavor there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Reduced sodium, reduced fat?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Has there been a mentor or anyone who kind of helped guide you in child nutrition since you\u2019ve been doing this?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: I guess the greatest person I would have had was a dietitian that I worked with named Major Vivian J. Baker, and that was where my start was at, MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. She was one of the first dietitians I worked up under.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: What\u2019s a day like now for you, or is there a typical day?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: My day starts out at the computer checking emails. Sometimes ever before that I get bad news that I might have a freezer out. Out of seven sites you just never know. Everything\u2019s going fine, you\u2019re doing paperwork. All of a sudden 10,000 pounds of frozen food comes into the district office and it\u2019s time to put it away in the freezer. And then you start putting that away and then you find out that you\u2019ve got a busted freezer right there at the district. You\u2019re trying to get that resolved and then another school calls you and tells you that their freezer is not working right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: How spread out is your district, those seven schools you mentioned?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: Twenty-three thousand square miles.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: My goodness! So I\u2019m guessing you face some particular challenges in food distribution and all sorts of things. Tell me about that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: Yes we do. One of them Aleknagik, before they built the bridge, we had to boat things across. We had a choice of sending it across with Bran Air, and they only flew into the village on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Or either we had to drive twenty-five miles on a road to get to the boat dock, and then another couple of miles with the boat. Then you loaded into the trailer of the four-wheeler and proceed on to the school, which is probably about a mile away. So by the time that you get this food from the district office into the freezer on the shelf at the school it\u2019s been picked up like eight times, putting it here, there, transporting.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: That transportation must add a whole lot of cost to your feeding program.<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: It\u2019s quite a bit and the manpower as well. Other sites that I have it\u2019s mainly Bypass. We deal with Span Alaska, and they cruise in here by ship twice a week. And then from there it gets taken to the airport and turned over to Northern Air Cargo or Everts Air, and then they fly into Dillingham. And then from Dillingham it gets handed over to Grant Air and they transport it to the village. And right now Grant Air is the only carrier that takes food to bush Alaska, to any of the sites that we deal with. And they have had some problems with Caravans crashing, maintenance problems with them. Now they\u2019re down to a 207 aircraft and it only holds about 1,200 pounds, and it\u2019s an all-day affair just to transport the food. I mean in some of these villages I have anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 pounds, depending on which village we\u2019re talking about. And the school size that I\u2019m dealing with, I have one school site that has fourteen students in it, all the way to 212. All total it\u2019s about 600 students, but we feed about 125 elders, people that are over 60, they feed them, BBNA, which is Bristol Bay Native Association; they pay the school district to feed the elders.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Wow, that sounds like a great program.<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: So you\u2019ve got a total of 600 students, but they\u2019re spread over 23,000 square miles?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: I can\u2019t imagine those logistics. I\u2019m sure there are a lot of unique things besides just the transportation. Are there other special things about Alaska\u2019s child nutrition programs?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: It\u2019s pretty challenging because everything doesn\u2019t always go as programmed. Sometimes I find myself, if the food starts getting low at one school site, and there\u2019s another one is kind of close by, like in the case of Togiak and Twin Hills, sometimes I would fly over to Togiak and I would pay someone to take me by snow machine to transport food out of the bigger school to the smaller school, which is a seven mile journey by snow machine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Now tell me what a snow machine is for someone from the southern United States.<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: Some people refer to them as snowmobiles.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Does it have a cab?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: It\u2019s just like a bobsled basically, and then they have a sled that they hook behind it and you put the food in there. And also myself, I would get in there and ride in that, or either I can piggyback on the snow machine with the individual that\u2019s transporting me over. Also keep in mind that you have to wait until the tide is right, and you need to make sure that the lake or the creek that you\u2019re going across is frozen solid enough too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: And how do you determine that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: Well, I just trust in the individual that\u2019s transporting me, and they\u2019re real good about reading the ice. They look at cracks and they can determine that. And so far I\u2019ve never broken through.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: You\u2019re a brave man. What changes have you seen in child nutrition programs since you\u2019ve been doing this?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: Quite a bit. I\u2019ve seen the menu patterns change quite a bit. Now we\u2019re dealing with this whole grain, which I don\u2019t like it. I like it in one way, and I dislike it in another, but I liked the menu pattern that we had in 2012, where fifty percent of your bread could come from a white bread source. It didn\u2019t have to be 100 percent whole wheat. In the grain area it could be white bread, but you needed to make sure in a week\u2019s time, a five-day window, that you had fifty percent of your product came from a whole wheat product, but then the other could be just wheat or it could be just regular white bread, and you could count it and you got your credit; it could be a reimbursable meal. That\u2019s one of the biggest changes that we\u2019ve seen. They\u2019ve pretty well stuck with the two ounces of meat and the milk.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Speaking of meat, I understand there are some interesting kinds of meat served in Alaska.<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: Yes. There have been times that we have served moose, but I haven\u2019t gone out on the limb and served any seal meat or anything like that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: But some people do?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: There are some schools districts that incorporate the seal and the walrus and items like that. I\u2019ve eaten it, tasted it and tried it, but the only one I\u2019ve ever put on the menu is I\u2019ve had caribou burgers, moose burgers, after having the meat processed and ground up into the same consistency as ground beef. Or either we would have moose roast or caribou roasts.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Where do you get your food from?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: I actually deal with Span Alaska, a company that\u2019s in Monroe, Washington. I\u2019ve been with the district coming up on seventeen years in August of this year and I\u2019ve been dealing with them for about the same amount. They specialize in villages and locations with no road service.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: They fly it in then I take it, or by barge?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: They boat it in. They barge right into here in Anchorage. And the waterway stays open from Seattle to Anchorage year round. And then from there they transport it by truck out to the international airport right here in Anchorage, and then from there they fly it in. And then they transport it to other aircraft and proceed on to flying it into the village.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: What do you think has been your most significant contribution to the field so far?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: Introducing some foods that kids frowned about or didn\u2019t ever want to try. One&nbsp;of the changes I made was squeeze type ketchup. They were so used to the bottle type and it was just so messy. And also introducing them to rice pilaf; instead of just saturating stuff with soy sauce, that you can cook with chicken broth and season that way. The cooks that I have, I\u2019ve seen times that the lingo when you speak to them, what you think that they\u2019re going to just grasp and it\u2019s going to mean the same, it\u2019s not that way. I questioned them one time. Manokotak was having a new school; they were in the process of building a new school, so they said, \u201cWell, we\u2019re just going to throw some sandwiches at them and let them eat it. We\u2019re not going to be able to get a reimbursable meal out of it.\u201d And so when I came onboard I said, \u201cI can make probably about ten different sandwiches, and I can put some fruit and some veggies like lettuce and tomato, and make it become a reimbursable meal, and we\u2019ll still get some money for these sandwiches.\u201d And I said, \u201cEvery now and then we can put a hotdog in there, and maybe get some canned chili, and even though we won\u2019t have a full-fledged kitchen to accommodate all this, you\u2019re going to have to monitor your bread, and when you get down to four cases of bread that\u2019s your par level. And that means that you\u2019re out of bread. You\u2019re really not out, but that\u2019s going to be your level that you don\u2019t ever want to get below.\u201d And they let that bread get down to one loaf. And they\u2019re feeding 150 people every day. And I say, \u201cI haven\u2019t heard anything from you ladies about your par level. How are you doing on bread?\u201d \u201cWe\u2019re doing great, fine.\u201d So the next day I get a phone call. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to do something for us! You\u2019ve got to send us some bread! We don\u2019t have enough to make sandwiches for everybody!\u201d I said, \u201cYou told me yesterday you were fine.\u201d \u201cI\u2019ve got one loaf.\u201d So they\u2019re kind of, the way that they interpreted something, it\u2019s totally different than what you meant. They don\u2019t get it until it\u2019s a disaster. When it becomes a crisis you get notified.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Is English not their native language?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: They do Yupik but the ones that we deal with, the primary communication is English. They speak English in front of other people and when they talk among themselves they speak Yupik.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Do you have any memorable stories about special children you\u2019ve served or people you\u2019ve worked with during your career?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: I have stories like being a black individual and having freckles, and a second grader coming up, and he comes up just above my waist, and I kind of feel a jerk. I feel a punch in my chest. And the question is, \u201cWhat happened to your hair?\u201d because I\u2019m bald, and \u201cWhy do you have so many spots on your face?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: These aren\u2019t bashful children are they?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: No they\u2019re not. It\u2019s just curiosity. It\u2019s nothing harmful. It\u2019s the first time in their life they\u2019ve ever seen anyone look like me, or seen the features, and it\u2019s just a sharing thing. They like it. Another story, at the school of Togiak, I go there my first visit and I said, \u201cHow well do the kids like green peas?\u201d \u201cThey don\u2019t like them. They just take a few bites. Some of them don\u2019t even do that. They just look at them and trash them.\u201d So I asked the cook, who is Mary Wilcock. She\u2019s still there. So she\u2019s been with the district since 1980. So that\u2019s a long time. So she\u2019s past sixty years of age. So I said, \u201cGo ahead and tell me how you cook your green peas.\u201d So she said, \u201cWe cut the can open. We dump them in the pot.\u201d And I said, \u201cAnd?\u201d And she said, \u201cAnd we turn it on and we begin to cook.\u201d And is said, \u201cWhat else.\u201d She said, \u201cWhat else you want me to say?\u201d I said, \u201cI just want you to tell me what else you do. Do you put any seasoning?\u201d She said, \u201cNO.\u201d I said, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t want green peas either.\u201d So I said, \u201cLet\u2019s put some butter in there. Let\u2019s put some dehydrated onion and some garlic powder, salt, pepper.\u201d So we went on ahead and added that. The first group came in, second graders. One girl comes back for seconds on green peas. And she said, \u201cCan I have some seconds on those green peas?\u201d And they were just blown away that the kids would eat them. I said, \u201cThat\u2019s the difference. You\u2019re not seasoning the food. What do you think all of these spices are?\u201d And I had another situation at Manokotak. The cook felt for some reason she would save the district lots of money by \u2013 the menu pattern says to serve a minimum of two ounces of meat, a half a cup of veggies or a half a cup of fruit, and a serving of bread and eight ounces of milk. She said that they didn\u2019t need all of the food. She felt it was fine to give them a fourth of a cup of veggies and a half of a cup of fruit, because in most cases with the sweet taste of the fruit they would eat that. And it even got worse than that in some cases. It was like she was giving them a couple of teaspoons of peas. So I subbed for her. I found out about that and I said, \u201cI\u2019m going to transport you over to Koliganek to work with the cooks there. I\u2019m going to come in the week that I send you for cross training and train with another group of ladies in a different school environment, kitchen and everything, and I\u2019m going to go ahead and become you. I\u2019m going to be the cook at your site. So I go and cook a whole week there. That particular day we had green peas, and I put the dehydrated onions, the butter \u2013 seasoned them and served them and gave them their full half cup of peas. So a first grader comes through and she says, \u201cPraise the Lord! I\u2019ve got so many peas today I can\u2019t even count them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: What advice would you give someone who was considering child nutrition as a profession today?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: I would tell them to go for it, go for it with an open mind. And when I say open mind, go in there not looking for everything that you introduce to them that you want to lay out to them is going to happen. There are some things that I tried to incorporate and do differently, and it was five years before it took off. And I just kept being persistent about it. And my deal too, I go and camp out with the cooks. I go and spend a solid five days and I work side by side with them and prove to them that it works. But for some reason, and I don\u2019t know, I guess it\u2019s just the culture in this area, and it just might be that way throughout the USA, that people are just set in their ways. And in my case, I fly in there on an aircraft and when I board the plane and go back, it\u2019s like, \u201cWell, we\u2019re going to go back and do things the way we\u2019ve been doing them, even though what he showed us and proved a point, that it\u2019s easier to do it his way, it\u2019s better to do it this way, and the food tastes better.\u201d And for some reason they just get stuck in their mind, and then one day the light bulb comes on and they actually start doing things the way that you showed them. And all you can do is just stand back and clap your hands and say, \u201cIt\u2019s working.\u201d But sometimes the reward is very slow. It could be five days from seeing success with one person, to five years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: You\u2019re a man of patience.<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Anything else you\u2019d like to add today?<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: It\u2019s been a great opportunity today to get interviewed by you and maybe one day I\u2019ll have great-grandkids to look at this and say, \u201cThat was my great-grandfather.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: It\u2019ll be on the web. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>WW<\/strong>: Thank you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: It was a pleasure.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Interviewee: Walter D. Williams, Jr. Interviewer: Jeffrey Boyce Date: February [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,14],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5626"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5626"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12357,"href":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5626\/revisions\/12357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}