Lynn Hagee graduated from Lawrence in 1958 as an art major. Forty-six years later she is still an active Lawrentian. In 2001, Lynn was hired as the catering director. Three and a half years later she is still the catering director, as well as the director of food services and summer conferences. Originally from the Chicago area, Lynn remembers first hearing of Lawrence. In the paper, there was a section called “On This Campus.” The day Lynn happened to look at it as a high school sophomore, LU was featured. She visited and the rest is history.
During her time as a student at Lawrence, Lynn was a member of the choir, the swim team, worked on Ariel, and was a “counselor” (RLA) in Ormsby, among other things.
After graduating LU, Lynn moved to St. Louis. She lived there, with her family, for 40 years. Lynn has four kids, all three years apart. She says that now when her grandkids come to visit, they like to watch through the window of her apartment overlooking Oneida Street the trucks that pass on the bridge.
Before coming back to Lawrence, Lynn worked at the Missouri Botanical Garden as their food consultant. Lynn loves to create menus and the artist in her finds there is creativity in it.
Before returning, she also went to culinary schools throughout Europe. When she heard there was a job opening in food services, Lynn saw it as her chance to give something back to LU.
One of Lynn’s favorite parts of her job is working with students. When she applied for the job, she thought of it as neither an advantage nor a disadvantage, but now that she is here, she feels that working with students is rewarding. She remembers what it was like to come to campus as a freshman and enjoys seeing it in everyone else in the fall.
So many things about Lawrence have changed since Lynn was a student here. One example she fondly remembers was that the housing lottery was by class GPA. She laughed as she recalled using her friends to better her housing choices. Brokaw was a residence hall, Downer was instead four Victorian houses, and there was no student parking!
With three job titles, Lynn is very busy. She calls herself a list-maker and is very conscious of every detail. “I do a lot of troubleshooting,” Lynn says.
There are always emergency situations that come up, just like any other job, but with Lynn handling them none of us as have anything to worry about.