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• Competition

The sixth annual Michigan ProStart® Student Competition, which was held at the Sheraton Lansing Hotel in Lansing on March 11-12, 2007, showcased some of Michigan’s best culinary and management high school students.  

More than 160 teens from 16 participating ProStart® high schools throughout the state participated in this year two-day state competition.  

The Culinary Competition, sponsored by SYSCO Companies of Michigan, offered 16 teams (each composed of two to four young culinarians) the opportunity to strive for excellence by delivering the best three-course meal for judging in just 60 minutes.  

Our team of professional judges, lead by Shawn Loving of Loving Spoonful, evaluated each finished product on product taste, safety and sanitation, team work skills, finished product, as well as menu and recipe presentation.   

Each culinary team along with their instructors was given the opportunity to sit with the panel of judges during the critique.   

Dan Nagelkerke, Director of Business Development-Program Sales for Sysco Food Services of Grand Rapids, was on hand to present medals and scholarships to the top three teams. The winners were:

• First place – Fruitport High School
  
• Second place – Branch Area Career Center
  
• Third place – Plymouth-Canton Educational Park   

The Management Competition, sponsored by Gordon Food Service, offered serious-minded management career seekers with a Case Study and Knowledge Bowl competition.  The Case Study portion of the Management Competition was a team event where two to four students were given a scenario, 30 minutes to come up with their solution to the scenario and 10 minutes to present their solution to the judges.  The students used their skills to work as a team to take on industry roles such as general manager, food and beverage manager and catering manager.  During the 10-minute presentation to the judges, students stated how they would solve the scenario under the role that they were assigned.  

The Knowledge Bowl portion of the competition continued with the same case study teams in a “jeopardy” style game show format.  Each of the 16 participating teams answered as many questions as they could in an effort to secure the highest point score.  

Management lead judge, Barrie Borovsky of the MGM Grand-Detroit, was on the scene to make sure that the students and judges had everything they needed.  

Ken Wasco, Senior Marketing Manager-Developing Effectiveness of Gordon Food Service, presented the medals and scholarships to the Management Competition winning teams. The winners were:

• First place – Calhoun Area Technology Center
  
• Second place – Mason-Lake ISD        
  
• Third place ­– Oakland Tech Center-Northeast