Lafayette is most known for its intelligent students and top academic scores. But a new club offers a team of amateur chefs the opportunity give Lafayette a new claim to fame by competing with other high schools. 

Family and Consumer Sciences (FACS) teacher Becky Lawrence sponsors the club and looks forward to working with her top chefs.

“The Culinary classes meet a curriculum called ProStart. It’s basically a beginner’s curriculum to introduce kids to the food industry. And, in that curriculum, students are allowed to compete nationally, locally and statewide in a club based on students who are involved in those classes,” Lawrence said.

At an informational meeting on Monday, April 12, students will pull knives from a knife box, each with a recipe taped to it.

“They’ll take it home and practice it for a couple weeks and they’ll come back in and actually audition doing that recipe for me in a time limit. They have to have it made, cleaned up and presented all in the hour time they have for their audition,” Lawrence said.

After they have made the team, the students will compete for the top four spots within the team. Those are the  four chefs who will represent Lafayette and compete with students at other schools.

“If we would get to be super good, we could go to the National ProStart conference and compete for scholarships. If the students would win, they would recieve a full-ride scholarship to a culinary school of their choice,” Lawrence said.

Many public schools offer the ProStart curriculum, but Lafayette has one of the best classroom programs, given the culinary facilities.

“It [the team] has definitely got advantages outside of just for fun, but it does help reinforce what they’re learning in the classroom, and introduces them to the food service industry outside of what I can teach them here,” Lawrence said.