SkillsUSA Cooking Competitor to Train at Brightwater Center in Arkansas to Prepare for WorldSkills 2024
SkillsUSA and NWACC Media Contacts:
Jane Short or Karen Kitzel or Wendy Echeverria
Email: jshort@skillsusa.org or kkitzel@skillsusa.org, w3echeverria@nwacc.edu
Michigan Student Trains at NorthWest Arkansas Community College
Bentonville, Ark., Aug. 12, 2024 — SkillsUSA’s WorldSkills 2024 Cooking Competitor Novirah Lone of Plymouth, Mich., will be coming to Brightwater, A Center for the Study of Food, a division of NorthWest Arkansas Community College (NWACC) in Bentonville, Ark., for a week of training beginning Aug. 12, to prepare for the WorldSkills Competition to be held Sept. 10-15 in Lyon, France. The Cooking Competition in Lyon is the largest competition, with 44 countries competing, and will encompass 20 hours over four days, covering all aspects of cooking and restaurant work.
Brightwater is hosting the week of intense training, providing the space, products, and expertise at the school’s state-of-the-art facility in coordination with Brightwater’s Executive Director Marshall Shafkowitz. Traveling with her technical expert, Greg Beachey of Silt, Colo., they will spend one-day planning and the rest of the week in the kitchens practicing Lone’s skills, working on the WorldSkills cooking test project that was just released to the 2024 competitors.
“During the week, Chef Shafkowitz will lend his expertise and bring in additional chefs from the region to offer guidance and support and work to create an environment to match what Lone will see in Lyon with similar equipment and workspaces,” says Beachey. “Lone will work on fine dining, bistro service, banquets, pastries, and a very challenging set of speed tests.”
Lone is a student at Schoolcraft College, and she is expected to graduate in the winter of 2026. In 2022, she represented the state of Michigan at the SkillsUSA Championships and won a national gold medal in Culinary Arts. She says, “I cannot easily put into words the way I feel about being selected. I am beyond proud of my ability and incredibly grateful for the privilege of being selected for this team.”
The 47th WorldSkills Competition in 2024 will welcome 1,500 competitors from over 65 countries and regions to take part in 62 skill competitions at Eurexpo Lyon. The competition will showcase dozens of trade skills from construction and building technology, creative arts and fashion, information and communication technology, manufacturing and engineering, social and personal services, and transportation and logistics. Over 250,000 spectators from around the world are expected to attend the 2024 competition including students, public policymakers, employers, teachers, trainers, technical experts and government officials.
A student-led partnership of education and industry, SkillsUSA is America’s proud champion of the skilled trades. It builds the nation’s future skilled workforce by delivering graduates who are career-ready from day one. SkillsUSA works year-round to instill positive attitudes, build self-esteem, and empower students to excel in the career path of their choice and follow their passions. The organization has 850 national partners and is integral to the training in nearly 20,000 career and technical education classrooms.
Follow Lone, Beachey and the rest of the 2024 WorldSkills USA team at: www.worldskillsusa.org.
About Brightwater
Brightwater: A Center for the Study of Food is a division of NWACC located in Bentonville, Arkansas, that approaches food as art, food as wellness, and food as business to offer an entirely unique methodology to the culinary arts. The center’s goal is to develop leaders who combine culinary skills with the ability to recognize and address complex food issues. In addition to artisanal food, culinary arts, butchery, pastry and baking and beverage management, it offers exclusive courses focused on culinary nutrition, food waste reduction and food security. For more information, visit www.nwacc.ed
About SkillsUSA
SkillsUSA is the #1 workforce development organization for students, empowering them to become skilled professionals, career-ready leaders and responsible community members. SkillsUSA represents more than 413,000 career and technical education students and teachers in middle schools, high schools and college/postsecondary institutions nationwide. Those members represent 130 in-demand occupational areas, from 3-D animation to welding. A vital solution to the skills gap, SkillsUSA has served nearly 15 million members since its founding in 1965. Learn more at skillsusa.org and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X and LinkedIn.
About NorthWest Arkansas Community College
NorthWest Arkansas Community College (NWACC) provides quality and affordable higher education to empower lives and strengthen communities within Northwest Arkansas and the surrounding areas. The college offers a range of certificates and associate degrees that can lead to careers in business, computer science, art, communications, culinary, nursing, engineering, construction, criminal justice and more.
About WorldSkills
Since 1950, WorldSkills has come to symbolize the pinnacle of excellence in vocational training. It provides a unique means of exchange and comparison of world-class competency standards in the industrial trades and service sectors of the global economy. The continued growth of WorldSkills attests to the fact that traditional trade and craft skills, along with newer technology’s multi-skilled occupations, make an essential contribution to the economic and social well-being of people everywhere. For more information, go to: www.worldskills.org.
