School at the kindergarten through eighth grade level won't be quite as sweet next year in Suttons Bay.

LINDA WROEBEL and her trademark
cinnamon rolls.

Linda Wroebel, the director of food service at Suttons Bay Public Schools, is retiring after 17 years. Left undetermined is the status of her cherished cinnamon rolls, which she makes from scratch every Friday.

“I did have a student ask me, ‘are there still going to be cinnamon rolls next year?’ I said I don’t know … I will leave my recipe for the next person to use. So if they want to use it, it will be here,” Wroebel said with a laugh.

Like the concerned youth with a sweet tooth, Wroebel’s co-worker and friend, Judy Stallman, said most of the students know Wroebel as the “cinnamon roll lady.”

Several changes have been made to the food program since Wroebel started at Suttons Bay, and they’re not all covered in icing. Along with baking 95 percent of the bread products, Wroebel helped implement a salad bar to provide more fresh fruit and vegetable options for the students.

Baking for younger students isn’t her only joy of the job. The friendships she has made along the way are what she’ll miss the most, she said.

“I came here not knowing anybody and now I feel like I have a lot of friends,” she said.

Stallman, who has been with Wroebel since the start of her career at Suttons Bay, said she brought life to the kitchen, making it a fun and intimate working environment.

“Sometimes I call her mom,” she said. “Not that she’s that much older than I am, she’s just easy-going, knowledgeable and efficient.”

Stallman has been a food service worker at Suttons Bay Public School since 1989 and said she’s seen plenty of people come and go and can’t believe how many years have gone by.

Wroebel can’t believe it either.

“I don’t think it’s really sunk in. I think in September it’s going to be a little harder than I’m realizing. When September comes and everyone’s going back to school I’m going to kind of miss it,” she said.

She will miss seeing the students and her friends in the kitchen everyday, but has some kids — and grandchildren ­­— of her own to help fill the void.

Now that she will have more time on her hands, she said she plans on spending much of it traveling and visiting her five children and 11 grandchildren who live all over the country.

Hungry students won't be the only ones missing Wroebel. She also cooked for the migrant worker program over the summers and for Tour de Leelanau bicyclists.

Also retiring from the kitchen at Suttons Bay is Dale Martin.

Martin has been cooking for the school for seven years, and in that time she made it her job to learn all of the students’ names.

Martin plans to spend her retirement traveling with her husband, and visiting her two sons and grandson.