Linda Otter Hopkins

I attended SCC for two years and then worked in real estate for four years. I met my husband, Dave, on a blind-date in 1982 and we married in May, 1985. (We divorced in August 2017, after 32 years.).

In in 1983, I started to work for a caterer, and then opened my own catering and basket delivery company, and did that until my daughter, Marissa was born December 1, 1987. I shuttered that business (too many holidays and weekends for a new mom!) and began teaching classes and also assisting visiting chefs at Les Gourmettes Cooking School. Still working there 30 yrs later. In the summer of 1995 I opened my own cooking school, this one for kids. At Les Petites Gourmettes Children’s Cooking School and ran that for 18 years until I lost my patience and love for it. I also teach private group classes and private one-on-one classes. My favorite private client is Larry Fitzgerald of the Arizona Cardinals. Through Larry, I’ve cooked with or for dozens of the other players, so their trip to the Super Bowl was especially sweet! Go Cards! My son, Connor, came along on May 24, 1991; he had some medical complications which eventually lead me to volunteer work for Phoenix Children’s Hospital fundraising efforts. I was on the formation committees for the Beach Ball and Forks & Corks and was event chairman of both, along with many years as a committee member for the Emily Anderson Fashion Show. In 2005 I got involved with the American Cancer Society and was event chairman of the 2006 Jewel Ball and then chairman of The Key To The Cure, later that same year.

When Connor left for NAU in 2009, I starts my cooking/ lifestyle blog, LesPetitesGourmettes.com and still regularly put up posts. In September 2018, a friend and I launched our new small business, AZHarmonyBoards.com. We create and deliver beautiful cheese and charcuterie boards for parties , meetings, weddings and events of all sizes.

I love to travel, especially to Europe. Paris being my must go to city, and is always our jump-off spot whenever we have the opportunity to “cross the pond.”

-Freshman orientation, freshman dances in the cafeteria, food fights, all those French fries with loads of ketchup mixed with ranch dressing, the snack bar!
-Club holiday sales and the fun of delivering or receiving the treats during class.
-Mrs. Nack’s class and Extravaganza (Grease Lightening, When I’m 64 (Carrie & Dick Van Dyke!), Family Zulus, Blues Brothers, Two Tickets To Paradise)
-“The Family Zulus”, both the skit and the real ones (“take it the grave,” as Chris King would say)
-My guys, Zack (Matt Ziccardi), Dom (Dominic Lanese), and Wingman (Chris King)
-Zack’s milk truck and trying to “furnish” the back of it.
-Winning $1000 on KZZP, bought my first car, an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, which was totaled in a late night accident only 6 months later by a guy from the class ahead of us (can’t recall his name) with his big red truck when he ran the stoplight at Indian School and Hayden. A few weeks later for Easter, the guys made me a panoramic sugar Easter egg… instead of a cute little Easter scene, it depicted my accident with a little smashed yellow car and a big red truck ! :(
-Ditching class nearly daily senior year (I was 18 and could call myself out) and going to the McDonalds at McCormick Ranch, somehow managed to pass that class.
-Running and losing for Jr. class treasurer – my slogan - “You Otter vote for Linda for Jr. class treasurer” Catchy!
-The pep assemblies, especially loved it when the guys would dress as cheerleaders/poms and do cheers and dances.
-Santa’s Workshops at St. Maria Goretti where parishioners would donate used toys each Sunday and we would go after school and clean, repair, and package them for needy kids. It was work, but really not! Youth group with Cooney! St. Maria Goretti retreats up north, a little praying, lots of playing!
-Flower Parties…. Can still make those tissue flowers in my sleep.
-Mr. Walls for math… need we say more?
-My best friend, Laura Galloway (class of ‘78) and I turning 16 in October (our birthdays are a day apart) and heading straight to Scottsdale Fashion Square to apply for jobs. We were both hired as temporary Christmas help. She as a gift wrapper at Switzer’s (an old lady clothing store) and I as a “cheese ball and cheese log” maker at Hickory Farms. We could never decide which job was worst! I smelled like I had bathed in cheese and had to work in the back refrigerated room, she had to deal with snooty old crabby ladies. We would commiserate everyday over lunch at Googie’s or a little German restaurant downstairs, I think it was called Haas or something, they had the best French Dip there. Remember when SFS was an outdoor mall with only Goldwater’s and Diamonds?
-Then working at Handyman Hardware on McDowell Rd with Dominic and Julia Moll (she got me the job) and Chris and Zack (I got them the job), I wonder why it's not there anymore?!
-Watching the guys water skiing on the canal being pulled by a truck.
-Also watching them make money while using the wench on their trucks to help pull out stranded motorists after they would get stuck in the flooded Indian Bend wash. And all those 100 year floods, seemed to happen every year back then!
-Standing in lines around the entire theater for hours to be the first to see Star Wars at Cine Capri
-Going with the guys to Roadrunner games just so they could watch (and try to encourage) fights to break out against the glass
-“Orange Fights” consisted of a bunch of us in 3 or 4 cars going to Garden Glass Church and picking loads of oranges, then racing through the neighborhoods while pelting them at each other’s cars. Only rule, driver window up… all other windows had to be all the way down! If my kids pulled anything like that, I would have killed them!
-Senior Prom at the Carefree Inn and the Senior Wills in the last newspaper of the year… good times!