The ProStart culinary team traveled to Washington, D.C. on Tuesday to compete with around 50 teams at the National ProStart Invitational.

During Thursday’s competition, the culinary team is required to make a three-course meal with no electricity and two burners.

The management team is in charge of creating a restaurant concept and making a business plan to propose in front of a panel of judges. The management team is Cassandra Onwugbufor and Alexandra Palmer.

Each of the girls have different jobs that they focus on in the hour they are given. Olivia Bishop is in charge of the appetizer, Michaela Birkholz is in charge of the entree, Madison Beemiller is in charge of dessert, Caitlin Gooding is the team lead, and Courtney Downs is the team manager.

“Each girl has a different part, but they are all equally important. We need

everybody on the team to be able to compete at our highest standard.” junior Madison Beemiller said.

To be able to travel to D.C. the team had to come together and complete lots of fundraisers such as; selling t-shirts, baked goods, smoothies, and even doing two rounds of selling teachers lunches. 

This helped give the final push, after also getting sponsors, to be able to get them all the way.

The girls have formed a bond over the time they’ve been together and have made new life-long friends.

“I am extremely grateful to able to have this experience with such a great group of girls,” Beemiller said. “We are an all girls team who should not be underestimated.”

Today’s competition will be streamed on the ProStart Kansas Facebook page. Results will be available Friday.

After competing in Washington D.C. May 7th through the 11th, the Maize Prostart Culinary Team placed in the top 50% of all the teams there. Also, the management team placed 10th in the nation, which is the highest Kansas has ever place. Both teams also got great feedback from all of the judges.