Joey Davis placed third in the culinary arts portion of the Indiana SkillsUSA competition in Indianapolis.

SYRACUSE — Four Pathways Cooperative culinary arts students competed in the Indiana SkillsUSA competition April 13-14 at Ivy Tech and the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis. Fairfield High School student Joey Davis (the other three are Wawasee High School students) placed third in the culinary arts portion of the competition and was the first student in the cooperative to ever place in a state competition.

Also competing were Kaylee Vanover, Katie Yoder and Juan Coronado.

In the culinary arts competition, which Davis and Vanover participated in at Ivy Tech, there were three components to the competition including fabricating a chicken, knife skills and preparing three plates. Those plates included a clear chicken vegetable soup, sauteed chicken breast with mushroom sauce, rice pilaf and braised parsnips and also braised chicken leg quarters with mushroom reduction, roasted potatoes, sauteed green beans with roasted red peppers, zucchini with batonnet carrots. The students had less than four hours to complete all components.

Yoder competed in the commercial baking competition, also at Ivy Tech. This involved yeast bread loaf, braided yeast loaf, knot rolls, pumpkin raisin bread, pumpkin pie, sugar cookies and filling and decorating a three layered cake. Students had four hours to complete all components.

Coronado competed in customer service at the state fairgrounds. Students were placed in a scenario where they exhibited the four components of greeting customers when they arrive at a business, being able to mitigate customer complaints, properly answer, give directions and transfer phone calls and also displaying a professional appearance in a business environment.

The four students qualified at the regional competition in February at Ivy Tech in Fort Wayne. They had to place in the top five in order to move on to the state competition.

From left Joey Davis, Kaylee Vanover, Katie Yoder and Juan Coronado competed in the Indiana SkillsUSA competition in Indianapolis.