By Michael Bushnell
Northeast News
December 22, 2011

“This is first place material, don’t you think?” said Kansas City Public Schools’ Culinary Arts student Akiea Fritz as she showed off her fourth place entry in the district’s annual Gingerbread House Competition sponsored by Manual Career Technical School on Truman Road. “Really! Look at the detail…” her voice trails off and her eyes check for reactions around the room.

Then a huge smile beams across her face and she acknowledges that Wardell Williams’ pretzel log cabin entry was pretty cool to look at, too.

“It’s all good,” she says. “He did a good job, too.”

Fritz, a Northeast High School senior and Williams, a Central High School senior, both garnered top awards in this year’s gingerbread house building contest as part of the culinary arts career program at Manual Tech. Williams snagged a first place award in the competition and Fritz secured a solid fourth place. Another Northeast student, junior Saira Quezada brought home a third place award for her gingerbread house. All the gingerbread houses were constructed of edible materials.

Program Administrator Chef Dennis Charest beamed with pride when the awards were given.

“This is a great bunch of students,” he said. “They work hard because they know there’s real opportunity in mastering these skills and moving on to a good culinary school. We’ve got graduates working in some of the best restaurants in the country and it all started here.”   

All three of the students expressed interest in continuing in culinary arts after graduating. Fritz expressed strong interest in continuing her culinary education at Johnson County Community College. Williams, who will be moving to the Kansas City, Kan., school district in January was hopeful that USD-500 would offer a similar program.  

“It’s been really fun,” Quezada said. “I know how to cook, but this program taught me how to make a variety of interesting dishes – lots of fancy stuff.”

Following the competition, Fritz and another student donated their creations to Newhouse, a local domestic violence shelter.