The Cougar Den, where students come to get food that isn’t boring like school lunches. The Cougar Den has a wide variety of food that you can’t buy at the regular lunch line and gives you a sense of freedom in a way that it allows you to ask what type of smoothie you want or what type of frappuccino you want. The students do a really good of using the Cougar Den to their benefit but what others don’t see is all the setting up it takes each day to get the Cougar Den running and operational. Setting it up is not just something they do a couple minutes beforehand. They start in third period and are done by lunch, getting the ovens hot and ready, prepping the frappuccino and smoothie machines for all the customers that are about to crowd in for lunch. This is just a couple little thing they do each day with setting up the Cougar Den.

Mr. Ferate who runs and operates the Cougar Den told the Cougar Chronicle “ we have had the Cougar den for about 30 years it started because we introduced a marketing program. You can put it on your resume that you worked in the cougar den and that will look good for a starting job.Every morning in third period we have that period to setup everything and get all the machines running. Clean up is always right after lunch in fifth period. They do a really good job of getting everything cleaned up. I put a lot of trust into the students, they are handling the school’s money but if an incident happens where the money doesn’t add up and i assume things are missing then I will turn on the security cameras.”

All the students in third period and fifth period have a job to do no one just sits around. The jobs that the students get vary from opening up the windows of the store to running the smoothie machine’s and handling the money, but those jobs are mostly third period and fourth period, fifth period does all the cleaning up. Fifth period will take out the trash and recycling , get the ice out of the smoothie machines, clean the dishes and wipe down all the counters. Even after all this is done they still have to take another thirty minutes or so and count all the money they made that day.

Ben Maxwell who works the Cougar Den during half of Second and third lunch told the Cougar chronicle what his responsibility is” My job at the Cougar Den changes a lot, one day i’ll be making coffee for people another day i’ll be working the registers, so most the time i’m doing something different every day. I don’t take my job at the Cougar Den to seriously like I would a real job, but it’s still a grade so I do what needs to be done and I do my part.”

Maxwell also told us how the Cougar Den Changes the atmosphere during lunch and if lunch would be the same without it.”I don’t think it would be the same at all, the Cougar Den in my opinion makes everything at lunch more alive with the neon sign and the music that the student’s can pick out on their own.”

Fifth period is just as important as third period when it comes to what they have to do. Everyone has to do their job, it’s like a real business if someone doesn’t do their job and their part in the Cougar Den that can cause a problem. There is a list by Ms.Ferates desk that has all the students jobs in the class and she makes sure the students do their jobs by asking them three times throughout class if they have done what they need to do.

Tyler Tubbs who is a Manager in Ms.Ferate’s fifth period still has a job like everyone else and told the Cougar Chronicle what he does to contribute to the Cougar Den and his thoughts on it. “ I have had three jobs this year, I started doing the dishes and now I take out the recycling everyday and close the windows of the store. I’m in Ms.Ferate’s fifth period so we do all the cleaning after lunch. It takes us about 35 minutes to completely clean up the Cougar Den.I like that it’s student led its gives us more freedom, it makes me think i’m in a actual business and that it’s not just another class. The one thing that Ms.Ferate put a lot of trust in with us is money, I think its cool that she trusts us it builds a good relationship with her students I think.”

Most of the students at Central Kitsap High school don’t understand all the hard work that Ms.Ferate and her student’s put into setting up and keeping the Cougar Den nice. It doesn’t take a few minutes to do it takes time and they are very good at what they do and how they accommodate their customers with new items that the students have said they wanted. Go and check out the Cougar Den and see what they have to offer at first through third lunch!