Students from the Culinary Arts Academy at Oxnard’s Pacifica High School are traveling to a national competition in Maryland this week, worried by the knowledge that it is their last chance to place first.
“Miss Howe is retiring this year. We want this to be her going-away present,” said team captain Stephanie Tejada, 17, a senior who plans to attend the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., in the fall.
They already have given department chair and 34-year teaching veteran Linnea Howe something no other local team has managed in nearly a decade of trying: a first-place finish against 26 other schools in the California ProStart Cup.
Presented by the California Restaurant Association Educational Foundation, the state competition nearly proved the end of the line for Team Pacifica when it took place last month in Pasadena.
