LPA’s “Raider Nation News” has WON TWO CRYSTAL PILLAR AWARDS from the Upper Midwest Emmy Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), which includes the five state region of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Wisconsin. Nominated in ten categories, LPA won in the prestigious categories of Live Sports and Graphics and Animation. With this current recognition, LPA has tallied ten Crystal Pillars awards since 2014. All recipients of the Crystal Pillar Awards will automatically be entered into a national competition with high school recipients from other NATAS chapters. National Award nominees will be announced in the Fall of 2018 at a live interactive webcast from The Newseum in Washington D.C.

A list of award-winning entries may be found at: midwestemmys.org. The Awards ceremony was held April 13, 2018. In Minneapolis at the Crowne Plaza Aire.

Students involved in the awards include: Jacob Woody, Savanah Schindler, MacKenzie Ehlers, Elise Whitehead, Parker Weyer, Erin Grabinger, Jayden Walthers, Will James, Blake Polejewski, Madelaine Anderson, Jenna Braseth, Claudia DeBlieck, Courtney Anderson, Alec Korby, Elsa Larson, Jacob Anderson, Garret Frank, Marcus Dickelman-Stassen, Justin How, Rileigh Leininger, Kendra Leendertsen, Kevin Bjorgan “Raider Nation News” is produced by Lake Park Audubon’s Mass Communications classes advised by Laureen Svobodny, Michael Bashford, and Kathryn Anderson.

Opening a restaurant can be tricky business, with the first year usually being the toughest. Startup costs for an average restaurant can reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, while maintaining equipment and other capital investments can mean a struggle that goes on for several years into the life of that investment. Last year alone, the Food Truck Industry reached nearly 3 billion dollars with it becoming one of the fastest growing private business industries in the country. Students at the Lake Park Audubon High School, enrolled in the Family Consumer Science Culinary International Foods class, got a small taste of what it might be like to run such a business. Six different teams generated marketing and business plans around the international country assigned to them at the beginning of the semester. Using resources from the National FCS Association, teams developed menus, promotional flyers, a company logo, cost and profit margin plans, as well as preparing one food entrée from their menu based on the marketing survey of their co-classmates. “The Food Truck project was a fun and different learning experience,” stated student Cailey Rosing, adding, “I give a lot of credit to the people who can balance their time and energy to run this type of business.” FCS Instructor Cheryl Hogie teaches the International Foods Culinary Class. This is the first time this particular project has been implemented; however, Hogie does plan to use the project plan again in the future.