DADE CITY, Fla. — As we recognize Veteran’s and Military Families Month, we also put the spotlight on the service members who do not let challenges get in the way of success post service.

Mary Katherine Mason Alston is a Marine Corp veteran and Pasco County native who is baking up a successful small business with help from a longtime family recipe.

What You Need To Know

  •  Mary Katherine Mason Alston opened the Lanky Lassie's Shortbread shop in Dade City and offers the specialty baked goods

  •  Mary Katherine is a Marine Veteran who served in Iraq after the attacks of September 11, 2001

  •  She is also a USF graduate and Pasco County native

While she considers it a simple recipe with just flour, salted butter and sugar, her shortbread cookies have become a delight in Dade City.

And there is a little more than the baking ingredients to Lanky Lassie’s Shortbread, the name of the business.

Alston has been overcoming obstacles for a while.

She joined the Marines right after the attacks on September 11, 2001. Back then, she felt a sense of duty to serve her country and put college studies at the University of South Florida on hold.

“Both my brothers who were in it said it wasn’t for girls. So that naturally fueled my fire,” she said.

Deployed in Iraq, she suffered a devastating injury to her ankle. It is an injury that has affected over the years with two ankle replacements and twelve surgeries.

Undeterred as soon as she recovered, she would continue military service for an additional five years until discharge.

However, she still earned her degree from USF at the same time.

Soon after 2008, while working in the hospitality industry, she began to bake the family shortbread recipe.

One that came from Scotland a century ago, passed down by her Great-Grandmother Murray.

“She taught my mom how to make it. My mom taught me how to make it,” said Alston. “Just during Christmas time, my mom would always make shortbread.”

In 2011, she entered the Shortbread Baking Contest at the Central Florida Highland Games, won, and started a side business.

“The judges are from Scotland. They think it’s good too,” she remembered from her time at the competition. “So, that’s where I decided I would make it like a hobby business.”

Alston then split time between that hobby business and a successful job in hospitality. 

But life has a way of hitting you with challenges. Covid came, put her industry on lockdown and crashed her corporate career. 

“And now what? Now I’m going to the middle school to get food for my kids,” she said. “I was in survival mode.”

Again, she turned to the family recipe.

And it took off.

“I became obsessed with it where it became my entire life and how I could support my family,” she said. “I worked all the time. But it didn’t feel like I was working all the time because I was excited about it.”

She now offers the winning product at her own shop Lanky Lassie's Shortbtread and has advice to others facing their own struggles.

“You just have to adapt and overcome,” she said. “And another key thing that I always go by is failure is not an option.”