The pastry show is a great way for students to showcase their work.
Students in certain classes within the baking degree are required to enter
the competition, for example in the chocolate class, they have to make a
platter of chocolates and a chocolate showpiece, in the sugar class, they make
sugar candies and a chocolate showpiece,
in the cake decorating class, they  make a wedding cake and/or
a special occasion cake, or a novelty cake like the carved cakes that you see
on the food network.
This is a great opportunity to see the creativity of the students.
We've had participation from
community colleges and other universities, culinary schools across the state, we've had
participants in the chef competition from Florida all the way up to West Virginia,
so we're trying to grow this into a more regional event.
We want to just take a moment
to invite Mark Turner up, who is our representative
from US Foods and is here and has a big role in this event and its success.
For me, to be involved with the company that really
supports the school like it does,
I'm very proud to have been involved with Wake Tech.
And of course, we have a whole other group of sponsors
on the back of the brochures, and if you take a look at that, and whenever you're
in one of these businesses, please take a moment to thank them for participating
in events like this, because it makes a big difference for the community.
OK, so have you been checking out the cake decorators in action?
The cake challenge is a live event
that is entertaining and fun for the public to see.
Each team is composed of two
cake decorators,
and they're required to finish the cake in two hours.
We've got to have some random things, we have 
some Atari, Atari sticks,
Twister, just childhood games,
things that maybe you might get at a birthday party
or holiday time.
I'm just going to glue little decorations all over the cake.
So, I've got Kermit the Frog and then we have rainbows
and corkscrews and music notes and stars.
The public loves seeing it, it's a lot like what's on the Food
Network, it's a lot like what they
dream about doing, and
the creativity that these decorators do is really, really fun to watch.
This is awesome, it's just neat to see art
in the form of baked goods and cakes,
I can't imagine do that to try to do this
when you can't erase.
So the winner of the People's Choice Award -
Kermit!
Courtney Leckey, assisted by his sister, Jill Leckey.
Here's the really cool thing - I don't know if you're aware of this, but you may be able to take one of those dates home tonight,
because we're going to
auction them off.
Who's going to be my first bidder at $75?
$75, $75, how about $100?
What a great night for our students,
what a great for our community,
and what a great night for our community college?  How about that?
You watch this event, because I promise you, 
this thing going big!
