Culinary students whip up dinner, pastries for SkillsUSA contest

EVIT is hosting the SkillsUSA Region 3 Conference on Saturday. About 300 students from the area will compete in a variety of career and technical education areas, including video productions, masonry, criminal justice, automotive, cosmetology, and advertising design. More than 200 of those students are from EVIT!

All the students competing in the culinary contests are from EVIT, so they decided to hold their event a day early.


Culinary students had to demonstrate their knife skills and cook a chicken vegetable soup, a sauteed chicken breast and buttermilk biscuits.


Commercial Baking students baked a variety of treats: bread, rolls, danishes, coffee cakes, tarts, cookies and biscuits.


And other students competed in a restaurant management competition in which they memorized a menu and set, hosted, served and bussed tables, all while focusing on customer service.

The top students will go on to compete in the SkillsUSA Arizona Championships in April.

EVIT teacher honored by Mesa PD

Congratulations to 3D Animation teacher Eric Perez who was honored recently by the Mesa Police Department.

Mr. Perez received a Citizen Meritorious Service Award earlier this month for his work on the department's hiring web site.

Well done!

Auto students make EVIT proud

Two teams of EVIT automotive students competed in the 19th Annual Ford Motor Company Arizona High School Pit Crew Challenge on Friday at Firebird International Raceway.

Last year, an EVIT team took first place, winning this brand new 2009 Ford Lincoln MKZ for their program:


This year, the students practiced hard right up until the very last possible moment. Here are a couple of the students, getting in one last practice before heading to the competition.


They didn't win this year (one team was a just half a second away from getting into the finals!!), but they worked hard, and we're so proud of them!

Congrats to all the students for competing well. Here is the AM team:


And the PM team:

EVIT culinary students prepare for C-CAP finals

Six EVIT culinary students made it past the preliminary Careers in Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP) competition and will compete against 24 other high school students in the final round.

Students are competing for thousands of dollars worth of scholarship money. More than 100 students competed in the preliminary competition, which was held at EVIT on Feb. 13; all six EVIT students who competed moved on to the finals.

The final competition will be held March 13 at the Arizona Culinary Institute in Scottsdale. Students will be tasked with making a chicken chasseur dish with sauteed potatoes and crepes with pastry cream and chocolate sauce.

Good luck, EVIT students!

Jet dragster and NHRA race car come to EVIT

Wednesday became "Cool Race Car Day" on EVIT's campus, when two different groups brought two different race cars on campus to show off to students.

First up was Elaine Larsen, a jet dragster driver who brought a car designed by students and professors at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. EVIT students learned about educational opportunities at the university, as well as some stats about the car, which has 5,000-6,000 horsepower and can go from 0 to 100 in 1 second.


Meanwhile, NHRA racer Tony Schumacher and a group from the U.S. Army were on campus to talk about the military, ROTC opportunities at local universities and racing in the NHRA. Here is Tony's car, which was retired from NHRA racing in 2005:


Tony set a variety of records with this car, including a national elapsed time world record and a national speed world record.

Mesa Police bring DUI crash car to EVIT

Mesa Police officers visited EVIT on Wednesday to talk to students about the importance of not driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

Officers met with students to talk about Arizona's various DUI laws and answer questions, and then students had an opportunity to view the police department's DUI van and a car that was involved in an actual DUI accident.

The van is often stationed at DUI checkpoints, and officers use it to handle blood and urine samples and check for driver impairment.


But the most impactful part of the presentation came at the end, when students got to see, up close, the possible consequences of drinking and driving. The officers brought along a vehicle that was hit by a drunk driver several years ago. Four teenagers were in the vehicle and were just about to turn into the driveway of one of their homes when they were hit by a drunk driver who had been out drinking all night and was speeding down the street.


All four teenagers in the car were killed; the drunk driver lived and is now serving a 42-year prison sentence. The families of the teenagers who were killed gave Mesa PD permission to display the car, hoping it will deter others from drinking and driving.


It was a sad presentation, but one that really illustrated the dangers of driving under the influence.

EVIT cosmo students volunteer at fundraiser

About two dozen EVIT cosmetology students volunteered on Saturday to help out at a fundraising event for local conjoined twins Emma and Taylor Bailey.


The race/festival event was held at Walker Butte Elementary School in Johnson Ranch. EVIT cosmetology teacher Rochelle Boggs and the students worked at the Paisleys Princess Palace booth, where kids could have their hair styled or colored or play with fun makeup and nail polishes.


All proceeds from the booth will help pay for Emma and Taylor's medical bills.

See more photos from the event here.

"The Airport"

EVIT aviation student Dakota Holbrooks made a video for his class that is reminiscent of the opening theme for "The Office." Check it out!

Reserve your seat for EVIT's Mystery Chef Dinner

Enjoy a good mystery?

Then you should join the EVIT culinary department for its annual Mystery Chef Dinner on March 11.

The food will be amazing -- that's no mystery. But you won't know exactly who will be cooking for you until you arrive. Twelve well-known Valley chefs will be on hand to whip up some amazing culinary concoctions, all based around this year's theme: cheese.

Past chefs who have participated include Mark Tarbell of Tarbell's, Beau MacMillan of Elements, and Richard Dupere of The Ritz-Carlton, Phoenix.

Tickets are $65, and every dollar of that goes toward culinary student scholarships. The dinner will be held in the EVIT culinary department's banquet room. Hors d'oeuvres will be served during a silent auction, which begins at 6 p.m.; dinner starts at 7 p.m. To make reservations, call Tricia Guerrero at (480) 461-4139.

Last year's theme was chocolate. Check out photos from that event here.

Two radio students honored by Rotary

Two radio broadcasting students were honored at last night's governing board meeting as the Mesa East Rotary Club's Students of the Month.


Breanna Bullis (left) and Nicole Bird are both second-year students in Steve Grosz's radio broadcasting program. He describes them both as shining stars who are an example to other students.

Breanna and Nicole put on a bit of a show at the board meeting, challenging the board president, Garry Hays, and superintendent Dr. Sally Downey to a game of "Truth or Trash." The girls gave a "fact," and the two had to figure out whether it was a true statement.

For example: "Ashley is the most popular name in the world (trash)" or "Men have better vision than women (truth)."

Dr. Downey won.

But Breanna and Nicole also had a chance to tell board members what EVIT has meant to them.

Breanna said when she first started at EVIT, she wasn't sure what she wanted to do after high school, and she liked the flexibility and variety of the school's programs.

"EVIT has really prepared me for the future," she said.

And Nicole said that EVIT helped her get over her natural shyness and taught her a better balance of work and fun in class.

Congrats to both girls for being top notch students!

EVIT staff holds rip-roaring Chili Cookoff

EVIT staffers had a little fun today with our annual Chili Cookoff.

There were 17 different kinds of chili of all types: traditional, vegetarian, turkey, mild, spicy, red, white. You name it, we ate it. Note, the aftermath:


The overall winner was the "Sally's Boys" team, led by Team Leader Chris Williams. But Kona, my lovely co-worker across the hall, brought home a win for the Building 3 team. Her chili was voted "Best Use of Spices." In other words, it was very very hot.

Gnomon school visits EVIT 3D Animation classes

A representative from the Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Los Angeles visited EVIT 3D Animation students on Monday to talk about the animation industry and education.

The school first opened its doors in October of 1997 and offers programs in entertainment design, digital production for entertainment, and entertainment design and digital production. Students can also choose to take individual classes on topics they are most interested in, as well as online classes and master classes.

The presenter stressed that there are several potential careers within the industry -- not just animation. Other options include working in design, modeling, texturing, and lighting.

Students also got to ask questions after the presentation. One student asked what they could be doing right now to distinguish themselves from other students and professionals in the field. The answer? Draw every day, network, and stretch your horizons to learn as much as you can about anything and everything.

A fresh new look

You may have noticed the top of our EVIT News blog looks a little different today. That's because I have swapped out the old photo with a great new photographic collage.

I wish I could say I managed to design that myself. But I'm not that good. Instead, I called on one of EVIT's stellar multimedia technologies students to help me out.

I found Elise through a Google alert, which notifies me when someone posts something about EVIT on the Internet. Elise is a very talented photographer, and she keeps a photo blog in which she occasionally mentions projects she is working on for EVIT. When I first clicked on her blog, the second thing I noticed (after her amazing photographs) was that she had designed a blog header that was JUST like what I wanted to make for the EVIT blog. (To see her blog, and you should really check it out, click here.)

We began exchanging e-mails. I sent her some photos I had taken around campus, and she came up with several blog header versions (all for free, bless her heart). We met to discuss which ones I liked the best, she tweaked them a little more, and voila! New blog header!

Thank you, Elise. Your talents have made this blog look so much better.

We hope you enjoyed Tech Fest!

Thanks to everyone who visited EVIT for Tech Fest! It was great to see so many of our EVIT families on campus, as well as many new faces!

It was our most successful Tech Fest ever -- our parking lot was FULL from 9:30 a.m. throughout the afternoon. There was so much to see and do.

Here are just a few snapshots of what was going on around campus:







At the end of the day, our new Mister and Miss EVITs were crowned! Congratulations to Monica Leftwich and Cruz Olguin in PM and Marc Reidhead and Charity Fuller in AM! And a big thank you to all the candidates -- all together, you raised about $1,000 for the Mesa United Way. Great job!


To see more photos from the event, visit our Tech Fest album on Flickr.