Commitment to ProStart: Mrs. New exposes her students to the larger world through the eyes of the restaurant industry, outside her students' small, isolated, rural town. With the use of practical application, hands on instruction and intensive chapter work, her students leave Yoncalla H.S. with a well-rounded, in-depth culinary education.

What makes these accomplishments even more astounding is that she achieves them within the strained economic structure that affects many small, rural schools. In spite of limited resources and the demand of teaching multiple subject areas, she manages to find the time and energy to instill a love and fascination for the food and the industry.

Mrs. New has been a ProStart teacher for three years and has attended all three levels of Summer Institutes to bring back the best foodservice instruction to her students.

Commitment to ProStart: Chef Heilman has been a leading chef in the industry for many years and then decided to become a teacher to educate the future leaders of our industry. She is a devoted teacher who cares about each individual and really makes a point to get to know each student. The respect and admiration that she has earned from her students is evident upon watching her teach.

Last October, Chef Heilman decided to bring a team to the Maryland ProStart Student Invitational. Because of her efforts and dedication to the team, as well as her team's amazing culinary abilities, the team placed first in the state of Maryland. They then traveled to the National ProStart Student Invitational in April.

Commitment to ProStart: Tyra has developed the program at Covington H.S. to being one of the top in the state of Louisiana. In just three years, her competition teams have placed first in Gourmet Meal and first Knowledge twice. She is very committed to the program and has always gone the extra step to help her students develop.

Tyra truly cares about her students as she keeps in touch with them after graduation to further aid in industry development. She has a large number of students earning their National ProStart Certificate of Achievement and these students are either continuing their studies in post-secondary schools or entering directly into the industry.

Tyra has been a ProStart teacher for four years and was recently named the 2004-2005 Teacher of the Year.

Commitment to ProStart: Susan Moberg goes above and beyond the call of duty for her ProStart students. She spends countless hours after school, before school and on weekends, joyously giving time to her students. Her competition team was in need of boccolini for their competition dish, and Susan drove 250 miles to Spokane to pick it up - a true testament to her dedication to her students.

Susan has been teaching ProStart for five years and was named ProStart Teacher of the Year. She is also traveling to Italy this summer at her own expense for a two-week intensive culinary institute.

Commitment to ProStart: Chef Crawford has made a full commitment to his students and their future careers in the industry by going above and beyond his job description. Introducing a student enterprise program giving his students the opportunity to cater in-school events, meeting with students before and after hours for competition training, creating on-going fundraising activities to support the program, and maintaining strong relationships with former colleagues as a means for key sponsorship opportunities are only a few of the ways Chef Crawford has expanded the ProStart program at Westinghouse. In the classroom Chef Crawford takes his many years of Executive Sous Chef experience and applies his learnings to classroom teaching.

Chef Crawford was named the 2005 Illinois ProStart Teacher of the Year as well as the 2005 James H. Maynard Excellence in Education Award recipient. The latter award honored Chef Crawford for being one of the best ProStart teachers across the country for his commitment to the ProStart program.