HISD’s Nutrition Services Support Facility located off Bennington Road in northeast Houston will now bear the name of the district’s first black food services director.

After a vote Sept. 14 by the HISD Board of Education, trustees unanimously agreed the facility will be called the Hexser T. Holliday Food Services Support Center

Holliday served the Houston Independent School District from 1958 until his departure in 1996. He began his career at HISD as a culinary arts teacher at Yates and Booker T. Washington high schools. Over the course of his tenure, Holliday advanced to become the district’s Assistant Superintendent of Food Services, the first black food services director in the district and one of the first in the nation. 

“He meant a lot to me and my generation that came up after him,” says HISD Chief Nutrition Officer Betti Wiggins. “He was on the cutting edge. You could not find another African-American during that time period that was in a leadership position in school nutrition.”