It might be overstating it a bit to say Jody Merrill saved the Wauneta Senior Center, but its troubles had something to do with her acceptance of the cook’s job.
    “I didn’t want it to close,” said Merrill, 63, of Wauneta. “We came here for some lunches a couple of times; it was enough to say, ‘Well, it’s a nice place to eat.’”
    The center had been without a cook since Krystal Hunt left Jan. 18. In the interim, volunteers took over the daily lunch, but those were cut back to four days a week and the center faced closing at the end of this month had a permanent cook not been found.
    Merrill started earlier this month and was trained in by former center Director Myra Large. Merrill began working solo just last week.
    Merrill and her fiance, Ardell
Enterline, moved here from Venango, Nebraska, in August, looking to downsize their lifestyle. Enterline, now retired, had lived here for more than a dozen years at one time and worked at Wauneta Roller Mills.
    Merrill has considerable food service experience in similar facilities. She cooked at a hospital and nursing home in Oberlin, Kansas, and as a dietary aide at a nursing home in Sterling, Nebraska. While in Oberlin, she was sent to classes on food safety. “You’ve got to know how to wash your hands and keep things from being contaminated,” she said.
    With that experience, cooking at the senior center “is basically about the same,” she said.

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