KENNEWICK, Wash. — Fourth graders from the Richland School District gathered in the Tri-Tech Skills Center Friday night to compete in the final Future Chefs Challenge.
It was the 12th annual Sodexo Future Chefs Challenge, and students from all around the country took part in the events.
The competition was created to get students thinking about making healthy food choices while encouraging them to be active and creative in the kitchen.
Eleven students from the Richland School District took to the kitchen to create healthy dishes.Â
KAPP-KVEW’s Rylee Fitzgerald caught up with one of those fourth graders, Jacob Valdez from White Bluffs Elementary School. Check out that interview below.
Rylee Fitzgerald, Chris Whitmer and Morgan Huff report.
The students were judged on criteria including originality, taste, kid-friendliness and the use of healthy ingredients. The winning student from each participating district will be considered for 40 regional finalist awards, and the selected regional finalists will compete for the chance to be one of five national finalists.
The winner of the competition was announced at the end of the competition.
1st Place: Daniel Masenten, who attends Marcus Whitman Elementary School. He created Daniel’s Fruit Salad.
2nd Place: Kiptyn Beaman, who attends Desert Sky Elementary School. He created Brussel Bombs.
3rd Place: Jon Darby, who attends Orchard Elementary School. He created Jon’s Instant Pot Mac & Cheese.
Rylee Fitzgerald joins the KAPP/KVEW team as a multimedia journalist as her first job in journalism after graduating college. She graduated from the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University with a degree in Journalism and Media Production in May 2022.
She started her journalism career at Hanford High School in Richland where she spent four years on the Falcon Report broadcasting team. She is an ardent writer and is typically found hunched over her computer writing either her novel, or a news story. With her love for writing, and her high school experience in broadcasting, nothing made more sense than to continue studying journalism in college.
Rylee finished her degree in just three years as an ambassador for the communication college, a producer for a Cable 8 Productions series, a camera operator for CougVision, and an MMJ for Murrow News 8. She spent a summer as a news intern at our sister station, KXLY, in Spokane before her senior year at WSU.
Rylee was born and raised in Tri-Cities, and eagerly comes back home after finishing college. She has a lot of pride for eastern Washington, as it’s the only place she’s ever called home.
