CHP Academy's Cook Honored For 50 Years On The Job

WEST SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – Richard Lomax has been working in the California Highway Patrol kitchen for more than five decades – and he wouldn't have it any other way.

"This is the food prep area. This is where all the cooking and everything is done," Lomax said.

Lomax gives us a tour. It's where every cadet hoping to get a badge pinned on gets chow, and where Richard as a 19-year-old employee got his start.

It was 1966.

"I started out as a food service worker; that's just doing the basic grunt labor. And then I moved into cooking. We have a position called Cook One," Lomax said.

More than 50 years later he's still here.

"It just kind of happened," Lomax said. "So I didn't plan it."

Even though he officially retired from the academy kitchen in 2009, he still offers his expertise as a volunteer.

"He's my best brother and best friend I ever have," said CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow. "Richard Lomax was here at the academy when I was a cadet in 1979."

Commissioner Farrow says Lomax is not only family, but a CHP institution – touching lives for generations.

"And when you think about it every California patrolman we have right now, he has somehow touched their lives," Farrow said.

Lomax wouldn't say when would ever hang up his white smock and spoon.

"Well they say to retire is to expire. So I'm just doing one day at time and try to stay in the game," Lomax said.

The CHP commissioner presented a plaque to Lomax which will hang in the academy kitchen forever.