Chef Gary Lyons of the Fox Valley Technical College’s (FVTC) Chefs Gone Grillin’ culinary competition team took home first prize in the dessert competition at the 8th annual UP Hog Wild BBQ Competition held July 21 and 22 in Kingsford, Mich. The winning dessert was Jones Cherrywood Smoked Bacon & Maple Cheesecake.

Lyons, a professor at FVTC who was voted the Wisconsin Restaurant Association’s “College Educator of the Year” in 2011, received a perfect score from the judges—a rare achievement for this type of high-level event. Nearly 30 culinary teams from around Wisconsin and Michigan participated in this state of Michigan championship sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbecue Society (KCBS).

The Club Foundation is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2013 Joe Perdue Scholarships:

• Jennifer Turowski, University of Delaware
• Natalie Fort, Michigan State University
• Jean Thomae, University of Delaware
• Rebecca Wyskiel, University of Massachusetts
• Adrian Vivas, University of Houston
• Salvatrice DiFrescoe, Fairleigh Dickinson University

The Club Foundation established the Joe Perdue Scholarship in honor of Joe Perdue, a long-time educator and pillar of the club management industry. The scholarship provides tuition support to students who are pursuing careers in club management. Since its inception, The Club Foundation has awarded more than 155 student scholarships totaling more than $270,000. Any individual who is actively seeking a managerial career in the club industry and is currently attending an accredited, four-year college or university undergraduate program may apply to The Club Foundation for scholarship aid.

“The Club Foundation commends these individuals on the pathway to excellence on which they have embarked,” says Seth Gregg, COO, The Club Foundation. “The Club Foundation provides these scholarships through the continued generosity and support of CMAA’s members, chapters and Corporate Advantage Program partners who provide the resources necessary to maintain these scholarships.” CMAA is the Club Managers Association of America.

For more information, visit www.clubfoundation.org.

Tulane University School of Medicine and Johnson & Wales University recently announced a groundbreaking long-term collaboration that unites doctors and chefs in improving the nation’s health through the teaching of culinary medicine.

For the first time, a medical school and a major culinary institution plan to implement a fully integrated, comprehensive joint curriculum for doctors, medical students, chefs and the community focused on the significant health role that food choices and nutrition play in preventing and managing obesity and associated diseases in America.

Olson Communications, a full-service agency that specializes in delivering innovative marketing-communication strategy to its portfolio of select food-industry clients, announces the winning recipients of its fifth-annual Chefs of Tomorrow™ grant program for culinary educators.

Austin Yancey, a chef-instructor at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts-Chicago, was selected among postsecondary culinary educators who teach in the City of Chicago to receive a $1,500 grant from Olson Communications’ Chefs of Tomorrow initiative based on juried review of his application and essay. Yancey used the grant to attend the American Culinary Federation’s recent Central Regional Conference in Detroit, at which he competed in two cook-offs against peers and also delivered a cooking demonstration and workshop for chefs and culinary students focusing on current menu trends featuring Idaho-grown potatoes.

The Culinary Academy of Las Vegas, the operator of the Springs Cafe at the Springs Preserve, hosted the First Grade Food Critics, a movement to promote nutrition education, career awareness and academic development among children in at-risk schools, to taste-test two new menu items for the 2012 Summer Food Service Program.

The Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) is a federally funded program administered by Nevada’s Department of Education providing free nutritious meals to children in low-income areas Monday through Friday during the summer. The Academy, the largest SFSP sponsor in Nevada, provides meals to community centers, Boys and Girls Clubs, housing developments, and churches in North Las Vegas, Las Vegas and Henderson. Last summer the academy prepared 2,300 meals a day (125,000 total meals) and delivered them to 33 sites. The academy has received two Western Region Sunshine Awards from the U.S. Department of Agriculture: in 2008 for Improving the Nutrition Quality and Appeal of Meals and in 2010 for Increasing Participation and Community Partnerships.

The Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) in New York City announces a co-venture with Russian-based Dve Palochki restaurant group to open a series of culinary schools under the name SWISSAM Hospitality Business School. The first school is scheduled to open in St. Petersburg in September 2012 and a second location in Moscow during 2013. The third partner in the SWISSAM venture is IMI, a hospitality college based in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Dve Palochki, which operates more than 35 pan-Asian eateries in Russia, believes that the culinary- and hospitality-education market is underdeveloped in its country. The SWISSAM schools are designed to address that need through training students using curriculum from ICE for careers anywhere in the world, from hotels and resorts to high-end restaurants, caterers and cruise ships.