LOGANSPORT —
A familiar face is returning to Cass County’s health department.
Cory Wolford, 31, was hired this month to be the department’s full-time food inspector after the departure of former inspector McCall Kitchell. It’s a role he’s reprising after roughly a year’s absence from inspection duties at the health department.
Wolford, a Logansport resident, interned at the Cass County Health Department in 2000 after his freshman year at Purdue University. He’d applied for the internship at the urging of one of the health department’s directors.
“One of the old board members, a dentist here in town, convinced me to apply for the internship,” Wolford said.
The 1999 Logansport High School graduate spent a summer at the health department before continuing his studies at Purdue, serving in the National Guard and graduating in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in general health.
After working a short time for a health consulting firm in Indianapolis, Wolford moved back to Logansport with his wife, Shelby, whom he’d recently married.
“The big city wasn’t the place for us,” Wolford said. So in 2009, he returned to the county health department, this time as a paid staff member. He began as a food inspector, then moved into handling general environmental complaints.
He stayed at the department until 2011, when he took a job at the state Bureau of Child Care as an environmental consultant. While he maintained his Cass County residence, the job took him as far as south of Indianapolis.
With a young son at home, Wolford realized that “three hours of driving every day was hours I couldn’t spend playing with him.”
It’s why he returned to the Cass County Health Department starting Dec. 10. He was one of three candidates interviewed, said Lynda Kennedy, administrator for the department.
“He had been here before and done a fantastic job,” Kennedy said. “He was already trained, had a rapport with the staff. He was the best qualified.”
As the county’s food inspector, the bulk of his job will consist of conducting inspections at area restaurants, schools and other establishments that sell food.
However, he’ll also handle some environmental complains, lead inspections and septic inspections, depending on the season and the volume of inspections the department is handling at a given time.
Wolford enjoys meeting staff members at the area restaurants and seeing what’s new in the building or on the menu during each inspection.
“It’s usually different every time you go into it,” said Wolford.
Attention to detail is a key quality for a food inspector, he said, so small, easy-to-miss errors don’t erode an establishment’s commitment to serving healthy food.
“We’re kind of outside,” explained Wolford, to help managers pick up on changes of habit or omitted steps that could otherwise be overlooked by someone in the establishment every day.
“I want to help people, but I don’t want to offend them,” Wolford added. Small business owners in particular, he said, take pride in their food. “They know those reports are going to be seen by the public and they get upset” if any code violations are found.
“I don’t want to be seen as a bully,” said Wolford, so he suggests solutions if he finds any equipment or practices in violation of health laws.
Wolford’s goal was to finish the department’s required inspections for 2012 and start 2013 off on the right foot.
“I’m just excited to be back,” he said.
Sarah Einselen is news editor for the Pharos-Tribune. She can be reached at sarah.einselen@pharostribune.com or 574-732-5151.
Local News
Related Photos
-
RETURNING INSPECTOR: Cory Wolford, a 1999 Logansport High School graduate, returned this month to work at the Cass County Health Department as a food inspector. He took the Logansport job in order to spend more time with his son, he said. P-T photo | Sarah Einselen
Discussion
Coming back home: Former food inspector returns to health department
Wolford returns to position he started in 2009.
- Local News
-
-
Juvenile Correctional Facility upgrades classroom technology
Crowding the classroom SMART board, three juvenile corrections students vied to get a chance at solving the giant Sudoko puzzle.
-
Rozzi to marshal veterans’ parade
At 91 years old, Ben Rozzi still walks slowly around his business, Warner’s Greenhouse, helping arrange flowers and turning his right ear slightly toward anyone speaking to him.
-
Logansport hip-hop artist tours for bullying awareness
A Logansport man is using his talents in rap and hip-hop music to speak out against bullying across the Midwest.
Adron Robinson, or A1 da Last Drop as he’s known musically, started taking music seriously in 2007, a year after moving to Logansport. -
Free lunch program no longer a poverty indicator
Indiana is changing the way it counts low-income students in public schools because Republican legislators suspect fraud in the federal school-lunch program used to measure poverty.
-
Trip suggestions for summer traveling
It’s summertime and the livin’ is easy, as George Gershwin once wrote. Thinking about taking a day trip with family or friends? Check out our list of ideas within a three-hour drive of Logansport.
-
Delphi’s Bowen House added to list of endangered properties
A historic Victorian mansion in Delphi, once the home of a successful merchant and a professional wrestler, has been added to an Indiana preservation organization’s list of endangered landmarks.
-
City, engineers assessing Sixth Street buildings
The Logansport building commissioner is working with an engineering firm to establish the future of three connected buildings on North Sixth Street after part of one of them had to be demolished last month.
-
State called leader, laggard in new economic report card
A newly released report card on where Indiana ranks nationally in key economic measures shows the state is both “a leader and a laggard” in areas that signal potential for more prosperity.
-
LHS students turn in laptops at year's end
After a year of 1,250 laptops carried in student backpacks, in classrooms and to homes, Logansport High School is reporting a good turn-in rate and a great year of academic achievements.
-
Company invests $1.1 million in Miami Co.
A Logansport-based company is investing $1.1 million to expand its operations into a facility north of Peru. The company said it will bring more than 30 jobs to the county.
- More Local News Headlines
-
Obama Visits Oklahoma, Consoles Tornado Victims
Raw: Train Derails After Overpass Collapse
Raw: Rescues From San Antonio Flooding
Raw: French Soldier Stabbed in Throat Near Paris
Mayor: Person Killed in San Antonio Flooding
Raw: Apple 1 Computer Sells for More Than $650k
Hagel Urges Cadets to End Scourge of Sex Assault
Raw: Gay Rights Activists March in Ukraine
Bus Fire Kills 16 Children, Teacher in Pakistan
Raw: Pakistan Election Results Protested
Raw: Trucker Bumps I-5 Bridge Before Collapse
Raw: Texas Deputy Shot by Colo. Suspect Honored
Major Detours Following Wash. Bridge Collapse
American Held in Grisly Czech Murders
Raw: Jersey Shore Reopens for Summer
UK-bound Pakistan Plane Diverted, 2 Men Arrested
