Culinary students from A-B Tech Community College won best student team, student chef, and student pastry chef in the Southeast Region at the American Culinary Federation (ACF) national qualifying competition in Overland Park, Kansas in March.
A-B Tech’s student team will head to ACF National Finals in New Orleans in July, marking the college’s record-setting 14th appearance in the national team competition. ACF picked the top four scores from the competition to move on to the Nationals. There were regional awards, but winning regions did not result in an automatic invitation to nationals, as in previous years.
A-B Tech’s student “hot food” team is comprised of captain Jason Gray, Nickolas Abbott, Corrine Dowd, Abbey Franklin, and Ashley Neri. Roman Nourse won the Southeast Student Chef of the Year contest and Patricia (Paty) Santibanez won the Southeast Student Pastry Chef of the Year. The team’s coaches are Chef Instructors Chris Bugher and Stephen Hertz. Nourse also placed in the top four in the qualifying competition and will compete for National Student Chef of the Year in New Orleans. He also served as team captain for the A-B Tech team that competed in the national finals in 2022.
“It was a very tough competition; the individual and schools competing were the best in the country,” Bugher said. “The team has worked so hard over the last few months and poured their literal blood, sweat, and tears to earn their way to the national competition in New Orleans this July.”
There also were 23 students competing for four individual spots as Student Chef of the Year, the largest number yet, Bugher said. “The judges crowded around Roman because he was so fun to watch in the kitchen. Paty also put out an amazing dish for student pastry chef of the year, winning the Southeast Regional Champion, but she was…
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