OZARK –– Chef Amanda Jones and her Culinary Arts students win the Pro Start Culinary Arts Prostart competition.
On March 8 the Arkansas Tech Career Center (ATCC) Culinary Arts program, sent a team of five students to compete at the Arkansas Prostart state competition. After months of practice and preparation, the students were ready and eager to put their skills to the test in front of a judging team of 15 judges. The students were judged on everything from knife cuts to sanitation during the one-hour competition.
Prostart is a timed team competition in which each team has one hour to complete an upscale 3-course meal, with no electricity or running water on two butane burners. Each team is provided 2 8ft tables in a 10×10 space. The team from ATCC took first place in the State Competition and will be attending the National competition at the end of April, which will be held in Providence, Rhode Island, to compete among 47 teams from across the United States.
“These students are the reason I love what I do so much. They worked hard for weeks in preparation and I am so proud of them,” stated Chef Amanda Jones. “They set out to bring the heat to the competition but seeing their faces when they took first place was by far the most rewarding part. We are ready to take on Nationals next!” Chef Amanda Jones was also named 2018 Prostart Teacher of the Year by the Arkansas Hospitality Association.
The ATCC Culinary Team is made up of Blaine Fetcher, a junior at Pottsville High School, Haley LeMaire, Hector Ibares, and MaKayla Anderson all juniors at Russellville High School, and manager Jaden Rhoades, a sophomore at Russellville High School.
