Serving Food With A Purpose

Photos and Writing by Nathan Senff

Cougar Country Drive-In is located in downtown Pullman, WA and doesn't just serve the best burgers in town, but brings families and communities together. Rhonda Miller, owner of Cougar Country, has worked at the drive-in for over 45 years. Her family are the founders and built it from a dump to the burger destination of Pullman.

Over the last 45 years, Rhonda has been cashier, manager and now owner keeping her father's family traditions alive. Her journey started at a young age to take over the drive-in. Her experiences and learning in those 45 years brought joy and some pain that has made Cougar Country even more spectacular.

Cougar Country has made its job to create a family atmosphere and help the community any way they can. This sprung into action when Rhonda hired a young man to work at the drive-in around four years ago. He lived with her nephew at the time and went through many tough battles which led to suicide. She had no idea what to do and didn't see it coming. Ever since then she tried to make Cougar Country a family oreinted place to work and help each of her employees. Now, four years later and she saw the pain Tyler Hilinski, Washington State University up-and-coming quarterback, went through and thus ending his life. She wanted to do more for students like Tyler and her former employee, so she volunteered to serve food for community events.

Miller started thinkin of ideas to help educate on mental illnesses and other diseases such as Breast Cancer while serving her prized Bacon Burger. She decided to fight with her friends and host a Relay for Life team every year and set up a booth with Dum-Dums and free kids burgers and ice cream and a smile or hug to reahc out to the community and make sure to listen and keep them close.

In the last few months Miller has also partnered with many different organizations on the WSU campus to raise money for the Hilinski family and the communtiy to get more advocated to prepare a path to get Pullman and Moscow citizens more help in suicide awareness. The foundations she gives to are the Hilinski's Hope founded by the football team and the family of Tyler and the #3 Memorial Fund.

Miller wants to serve food with a purpose to educate the community of awareness and that we need to keep each other close; what better way to do so than at the town staple-Cougar Country.