Nickles Wins FELC Ultimate Teaching Competition 2009

The first annual FELC Summit included an Ultimate Teaching Competition, Bobby Flay style, on Saturday afternoon. There were three finalists who competed for the honor of Ultimate Teacher. The winner was decided upon by a panel of judges and those who watched the competition who were given an evaluation form to select the winner. The winning competitor recieved a plaque that had a whisk affixed to it with an inscription that read, "Ultimate Teaching Competition Winner 2009"

This year's winner was Jane A. Nickles, MBA, CSW, CFBE, who has been a wine educator and chef instructor at the Texas Culinary Academy for over ten years. "Miss Jane,"as her students call her, is also the author of “WineSpeak 101,” regular wine columnist for Eat and Drink Austin Magazine, and wine writer for the website "The Texas Wine and Food Gourmet." In December of 2007 Jane was honored by being named the Career Education Corporation “Educator of the Year”, from a field of over 90 colleges and 6,000 faculty members. She calls this award her “proudest moment.” For further information, contact Miss Jane at jnickles@tca.edu.

Jane was an energetic presenter who taught those in attendance a great deal about wine in the short time given to all competitors. She also engaged the judges in the learning which gave her high marks.

We will be having the competition again at the 2010 FELC Summit and will put the call out for competitors. To quote Bobby, we ask you, "Are you ready for a throw down?" You will have your chance in 2010 to win the coveted whisk plaque!