After 35 years, Pat McKenna is calling it quits.

"I feel like I've reached my best-before date,” the F.H. Collins Secondary School Foods Education And Service Training (FEAST) teacher said with a laugh in an interview Thursday afternoon, explaining her reasons for retiring.

While the thought of retiring earlier had crossed her mind, she noted there were many students anxious to participate in the Skills Canada competitions who asked her to stay another year to enable them to take part in the competition.

At the 35-year mark though, she said she is ready to change the pace and move on to other things in her life.

McKenna won't say exactly what those plans are, except that she will once again compete in the Yukon River Quest as part of a two-person team later this month. She has taken part in the annual marathon paddling competition most years since 2002.

After this year's race, she said of her plans, "We'll see how things go.”

Right now, the focus is largely on the end of the school year. For the FEAST program, that means catering a lot of big events in the school community, including the June 5 graduation ceremony and this week's tea for retired teachers.

That's in addition to the regular cafeteria service the students offer four out of the five school days each week.

The FEAST program, which McKenna developed, has been operating at the school since 1993.

It's essentially run as a business, giving students skills and work experience in preparing food for large groups as well as working in the business side of it – ordering supplies, selling the food and so on each Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

The cost of the cafeteria food is priced to simply recover the costs of operating the program.

Wednesdays are spent training for special events like the Skills Canada competition.

And there's also the catering as well as preparing food for the benefit of the community – a gingerbread house donated for children staying at the hospital over Christmas, sandwiches for the outreach van and many others over the years.

While McKenna is in charge of the program, it's the students she's quick to praise and focus on.

"Teenagers love to contribute,” she said, recalling her students' enthusiasm for theme days.

The school's annual event drawing attention to anti-bullying saw the FEAST students prepare cafeteria goodies around the colour pink, which has become a symbol of the anti-bullying movement.

On the menu that day were pink borscht, NOT-pink chicken, pink ice cream and cookies that included a pink centre among other pink items on the menu.

The FEAST program is a far cry from the way food preparation was taught when McKenna began teaching at F.H. Collins in 1979. At that time, she taught very traditional home economics classes. It was 14 years later that things changed.

"There was a real desire to learn more trades,” she said.

A focus on trades and the beginning of Skills Canada as well as the development industry standards like Food Safe all spurred the beginning of FEAST.

At that time, there was no cafeteria in the school, with most students bringing their lunches.

The school was renovated to include a cafeteria and gradually the eight ovens from the home ec department were moved to the cafeteria and FEAST students began operating the new cafeteria.

The school's focus has been on offering healthy foods that fit in with Canada's Food Guide at an inexpensive price and balancing that with sticking to the B.C. curriculum for food courses.

While the menu has changed over the years – with items like traditionally deep-fried fries gradually taken off the list of choices in favour of healthier options like oven-baked potatoes – there are some things on the menu that have not changed.

For many years now, Thursdays at F.H. have been better known as banana chocolate chip day for the muffins on the menu.

The day is so well-known, T-shirts have been made and worn by staff stating their love for banana chocolate chip day and the beloved muffins sell out every week, with the cafeteria peddling them at a rate of eight muffins per minute.

"Teenagers are hungry,” McKenna said, noting the popularity of many items on the menu.

Over the years, McKenna said she's also noticed the number of vegetarian options being purchased rise as well as the heart healthy options.

"That part's been really fun,” she said of her job, noting she's always making healthy food for healthy, hungry students.

The move to healthier options comes also with the curriculum requirement for students to use a deep fryer. McKenna has taken on that challenge by having the students deep-fry tortillas to make taco shells that are then filled with healthy ingredients.

McKenna also has focused a lot on using Yukon products and going to Yukon businesses as much as possible.

Any potatoes F.H. students have eaten in their cafeteria have been grown in the territory, and it's Yukon carrots in the ginger carrot soup.

While the caribou and bison in the school's sausages and burgers come from the Northwest Territories, they're purchased through Yukon Meat and Sausage, a local business.

It was in 2007 that McKenna took a one-year sabbatical to earn her masters degree in science and human nutrition.

That year, she said, not only allowed her to recharge and return to F.H. for another seven years, but also emphasized the importance of choosing locally grown food wherever possible and that simple food is often the healthier option.

And over the years, she has been proud to see her students move on and pursue careers in the food industry, with former FEAST students going on to become chefs, nutritionists and dietitians.

Along the wall into the cafeteria, laminated photo displays show the food and students who were part of the FEAST program each year.

McKenna is quick to point to former students, including one who is now working as a chef in Britain.

"It's a really good starting point,” she said.

As she noted, the program can also help students move into summer jobs in the food industry as part of the courses require students to get their Food Safe certification.

Watching her former students succeed, she said, is very gratifying.

While McKenna is retiring from the program she was instrumental in developing and delivering for more than 20 years, a new teacher will be hired to deliver the program.

McKenna hopes the FEAST program will continue to develop and grow.

A tea was held today to honour McKenna's long-time career at the school.