♪♪ It takes talent, teamwork, endurance and self-discipline to earn a place in a high school championship.

At the same time Iowa girl's basketball players are fighting for the state title, the culinary students are right across the street engaged in a battle of their own using many of the same skills.

♪♪ Good morning!

Welcome to the 2024 Iowa ProStart Invitational.

♪♪ Jessica Dunker: This is the culinary championships for Iowa high schools as well as the restaurant management championship.

♪♪ ProStart is a two-year food service curriculum for high school students.

31 teams from across the state are competing today and winners will represent Iowa in a national competition in Washington, D.C.

The day begins with the culinary teams.

Jessica Dunker: And that is a very Top Chef model.

They were judged the moment they walked in the door.

Their coolers were inspected, the way they load things into trays were inspected.

They have four students, two tables, two burners and 60 minutes to do a three-course presentation.

♪♪ The pressure is on for the students from Hampton-Dumont-Cal.

Their team has won this competition for the past two years.

And this year we chose an Iowa theme for our meal and it is seen throughout all of our dishes.

♪♪ Jaxson Rew: My name is Jaxson and I'm on the culinary team for Hampton-Dumont-Cal.

♪♪ Jaxson Rew: My biggest thing is am I forgetting something?

Kasey Nolte: I was really nervous.

I've never done this before and we've practiced many, many times, so I just had to keep my routine, just try to keep calm as I was doing it.

♪♪ Kasey Nolte: I was the starter.

I did all the starter myself.

It was a cheesy corn polenta with Brussel sprouts and pancetta and it had a Dijon maple mustard sauce.

We decided to put real corn in it and it tasted so good, so it was so good.

For maybe two months now we just practiced every single day, all day if we didn't have school we'd come in, just repeating recipes over and over again so we could get it right.

Leslie Osborn: Jaxson is one of our students that did one of the knife skills and he was working really hard on how to figure out how to speed up the process because that cuts into your hour of cook time.

♪♪ Jaxson Rew: I made all of the sides for the entree, so I made our green beans, the mushroom sauce and the potatoes and then I plated the entree.

Everything went well except when I was cooking the mushroom sauce it kind of spilled over the side onto the tablecloth.

But, it's okay.

Jessica Dunker: We have no trouble finding judges for this event.

It's folks that are specialists in sanitation, it's educators, it's professional chefs, it's restaurant owners, it's hospitality professionals.

Aaron Holt: I mean, mainly it's seasoning, that is my biggest thing.

Are things salted appropriately?

I also love the use of color.

I know chefs my age that would screw some of these dishes up.

So, to see a perfectly cooked lamb rack, a rack of lamb, really cool.

Maria Keys: A few schools really stood out for pushing and doing a bunch of stuff that were pretty bold like panna cotta in very short amounts of time.

♪♪ (applause & cheering) Jessica Dunker: What's interesting about the program is that there aren't class categories like sports.

So, sometimes the smallest schools are the schools that win.

And so, it's one of the few competitions where a Hampton-Dumont, who is one of the schools that we have today, is competing with Central Campus here in Des Moines or Davenport Central.

The second half of the day is the management competition.

♪♪ Jessica Dunker: You can be a great chef, but you can't run a great restaurant unless you have a great business person too.

And all of the students that choose to be in the management competition have created restaurant concepts.

They have looked at floor plan, concept, marketing, they've covered staffing, menu pricing.

Rylee Keehn: Our concept is a vegetarian food trailer who focuses on eliminating food waste and donating back to our community.

Zoe Erdman: I used to be terrified of speaking in front of large crowds and having a voice for myself.

But through watching and just gaining knowledge about the culinary industry and management and hospitality aspect has really opened my eyes and made me more comfortable with talking in front of people.

Rylee Keehn: We had some of the judges laughing so I'm going to take that as a positive.

(laughter) ♪♪ Jessica Dunker: And what we've really seen is that this program can give those students the opportunity to represent their school maybe for the first time on a team.

Leslie Osborn: Every change that I've asked them to make, every tweak that we have thought about and talked through has been group decisions, that collaboration, those communication skills, the critical thinking and thinking on your feet.

We had a dessert that didn't set the same way that it has 157,000 other times and she pivoted and she crushed it.

♪♪ Leslie Osborn: Being down here alongside state basketball at the same time, you know, you might think that this isn't the big deal, but I will tell you that we were livestreaming for students to watch back home, so knowing that this is going on around us and knowing that our community puts us on that similar sort of level that they're just so proud and it gives us that feeling of pride as well.

And our first-place culinary competition team going on to represent Iowa in the national ProStart Invitational, for what, third year in a row?

(cheering) Jessica Dunker: My favorite moment is when we announce the winners because always there are tears and they are tears of joy.

These students have poured their hearts and souls into these menus, they have poured their hearts and souls into those restaurant concepts, and when they realize that they are Iowa's champion and that this is their opportunity to represent our state on a bigger stage, they are