Recently West Ashley High School (WAHS) sent two Culinary Arts teams to the 15th Annual South Carolina ProStart Invitational. The South Carolina ProStart Invitational is the state’s premier competition for high school culinary arts and hospitality students. West Ashley High’s Culinary Team took third place while the Management Team took sixth.
West Ashley High competed against thirteen other schools for a chance to win scholarship money and a chance to go to Nationals. The ProStart Invitational is a three-day competition for students who are currently enrolled in culinary arts or hospitality classes to test their skills in either Management or Culinary. Teams who place in the top five in both categories win educational scholarships.
The South Carolina ProStart Invitational has two categories in which students can compete: Culinary and Management.
The Culinary category focuses on the preparation of dishes. Teams are given sixty minutes to make a three course meal with access to only two butane burners and no running water or electricity. The Culinary teams are judged on taste, sanitation, safety, skill, and teamwork.
In the Management category, teams present a proposal for a restaurant to a panel of industry judges. They also have to come up with quick solutions to problems managers face every day to test their problem solving skills.
West Ashley High’s ProStart Culinary Team members included Sean Soda, Hallie Sanders, Brazil Murry, Ariel Salazar, and Hope Rutherford. They finished in third place in the competition while West Ashley High’s ProStart Management Team finished in sixth place. Members included Grace Deavor, Autumn Watts, and Kelly Cochran.
“Our Culinary team did really well, but our Management team could’ve done better,” said Grace Deavor, a student who has competed as part of the ProStart Management Team two years in a row. “We had hoped to place higher than last time.” Last year, West Ashley High’s Management Team placed fourth after not having competed in the Management category in several years.
West Ashley High Culinary Arts teacher Jason Wheless was very proud of his teams. “It went really well,” said Wheless.
