FRIDAY OCTOBER 15, 2021

Temple High School’s 400 culinary arts students get hands-on experience in large “kitchen” classrooms outfitted with restaurant-quality appliances and equipment.

Culinary Arts program instructor Margaret Fyffe (right) gives onion dicing tips to senior Nahum Rivas on Friday at Temple High School. The onions were being used to prepare a meatloaf for a catering event during the lunch hour. Rivas, who is a cook at Cotton Patch Cafe, is a fourth-year culinary student who is considering a professional career in the food industry. Photos by David Stone/Our Town Temple

By DAVID STONE, Our Town Temple exclusive

Joseph Bates is learning how to cook. The Temple High senior plans to continue his education after graduation, but he isn’t sure which direction he is going to go. But one thing is for sure: He’s going to eat.

“Whatever I decide to do, I’m going to have to eat,” Joseph said. “I figure I better learn to cook.”

To accomplish that goal, he and about 400 other Temple High School students are participating in the school’s culinary arts program. Many are planning on attending culinary schools in the future and some are undecided but leaving their options open, but all realize cooking is an important life skill.

“Students begin their culinary studies as freshmen,” said Margaret Fyffe, program director. “We have about 18 seniors, and when they graduate they will be certified as a ServSafe Manager.”

This certification enables students to oversee various aspects of the restaurant industry. It verifies that a person has sufficient food-safety knowledge to protect the public against contracting food-borne illnesses.

A ServSafe Manager certification better positions a person for leadership roles in the restaurant and food industries.

In addition to learning about measurements, kitchen safety and sanitation, students get hands-on experience in large “kitchen” classrooms. These kitchens are outfitted with restaurant-quality appliances and equipment, and the students often create meals for teachers, the public and for a class catering business.

On Friday, the 9:20 class was preparing a meal for about 20 local builders. Students were assigned to stations, each doing their part to make the meal a reality.

“Today we’re making meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls, tea and banana pudding,” Fyffe said and she shuffled her attention from station to station.

Fyffe — an Indiana University grad with a degree in family consumer science — said many of her students have expressed a desire to work in the food industry. At Temple High, they learn basic skills — and some not so basic — they will need to continue their education or go straight into a restaurant job.

The culinary instructor has been with Temple ISD for about 15 years and has seen interest in the culinary arts program rise like a loaf of sourdough bread.

“It’s phenomenal,” she said. “We used to be a little classroom. It was like a home economics room with little kitchens and little tables.”

Because of the tight space, students were not able to operate in a professional kitchen environment. Now, kitchen classrooms also are equipped with video equipment, monitors and microphones, allowing Fyffe to reach all students regardless of where they are working.

The “learning kitchens” also allow Fyffe and her students to operate their catering business.

“We’re doing catering events regularly — one every two weeks or so,” Fyffe said. “We’re always preparing for future events. We’ve catered for the public, teacher lunches and other events.”

She said students once catered to 800 people for a single event.

In addition to catering, program participants also have the opportunity to work at The Blue Plate, a student-run restaurant located adjacent to the classrooms.

On the second Tuesday of each month, students take reservations for a full-service meal in The Blue Plate. The cafe seats about 28 people, Fyffe said. The program also operates The Blue Cup, a smaller facility that specializes in desserts.

“The Blue Cup serves coffee products (to adults), banana nut bread, chocolate cakes, cookies — a variety of desserts,” she said.

Fyffe believes the program’s growth can be attributed to the high school’s Career and Technical Education facility on campus. The $32 million, 113,000-square-foot facility opened in 2018 and houses vocational and certification programs in fields such as plant and animal sciences, veterinarian sciences, hospitality and tourism, cosmetology, construction skills, automotive technology, automotive paint and body, digital arts and communications, law enforcement and health sciences.

"Everything that we do across all CTE programs is to prepare students for the workforce," said Denise Ayres, director of Career and Technical Education at THS. "That could mean entering the workforce immediately after high school or continuing on to college.”

Ashley Rodriguez fills Mason jars with homemade banana pudding to serve during a catered luncheon Friday. Rodriguez plans on attending culinary school after graduation and eventually opening a small cafe and bakery.

Kaleb Hill and Joseph Bates, both seniors, are preparing potatoes for a dish that to be served at a Friday catering event. Hill plans to attend Tarleton State to study psychology. Bates also plans to attend college, but right now he is focusing on improving his cooking skills.

Temple High senior Ariana Boian is preparing a dough to make rolls Friday during her culinary arts class. Ariana plans on continuing her education at Temple College for two years before attending Mary Hardin-Baylor. She is considering a career in either criminal justice or as a chef. “I really haven’t decided yet,” she said. “But I’m having fun in this program.”

“This is my specialty,” joked Jaquial Smith as he rolled eating utensils in cloth napkins to be used at a catered luncheon. Smith, a four-year participant in the THS program, is planning a career in dance or culinary arts.

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SHRIEK FEST CONTINUES: THE STORY OF FISHZILLA

This 1940s “photo” shows what appears to be a giant fish on a tractor-trailer, supposedly in Belton. Some say the photo is really, others believe it to be a hoax. I don’t know, but that would be a heck of a catch. The photo likely led to the following story, or at very least fueled the legend of…Fishzilla.

Catfish as big as a Volkswagen

By DAVID STONE, Our Town Temple

I first moved to Temple in the summer of 1977, and within a few days I had made the trip out to Lake Belton with new acquaintances. 

I was being given the grand tour of the lake by boat, and when we pulled up to the dam, both the boat motor and a blaring radio were shut off. The mood changed from party to somber, and I knew I was about to hear something important.

The toll of 45 years erases a lot of memories — I don’t remember whose boat it was or who else was on board but I’ll never forget the warning.

“Whatever you do, don’t swim here,” the boat pilot said, his eyes open wide.

I looked around, the lake was teeming with teenagers skiing.

“Forget them, they don’t know,” he said. “Believe me, you don’t want to get in the deep water by the dam.”

You’ve probably heard this story too, or one very similar. 

The danger? Catfish as big as a Volkswagen.

“They can swallow a big dog whole.”

Wow! Welcome to Bell County. Funny thing is, I would need a few extra hands and feet to count every tale I’ve heard about the giant catfish.

This legend seems to be a Southern thing. The tale has been told at virtually every lake south of the Mason-Dixon Line. It’s like the South’s very own Loch Ness monster.

The local version likely stems from an incident that occurred 10 years before Lake Belton was even created with the damming of the Leon River in 1954.

A photo supposedly taken in 1944 circulated through Central Texas and was met with great awe. It showed a big-rig truck with a flatbed trailer covered with a monster catfish. The photo had “Leon River Catfish — Belton, Tex” and “Belton Studio” etched into the print. 

The photo looks real, and in the days before Photoshop and other editing software, most photographs were the real deal. This one? I’m not so sure. There is a process where photo negatives can be cut and burned together to create a forged piece of art. That, however, would take considerable skill back in the 1940s.

So, the legend of Fishzilla was born, and it probably fueled the tale of the giant catfish “in the deep water by the dam.”

Thurber isn’t a name most Central Texans know, but in the early 1900s it played a huge role in civilizing the wild railroad town of Temple.

Bricks from Thurber, Texas, were used to build a privacy wall around the outdoor dining area, playground and music venue at Treno Pizzaria & Taproom in downtown Temple. The bricks were originally used to pave 1st Street as part of a massive paving project that took place in 1910. Photo by David Stone/Our Town Temple

Building blocks of Temple history

By DAVID STONE, Our Town Temple

110 years on the job is a long time — even for a brick. But after keeping a downtown road mud free since 1909, some 28,000 Thurber reds have found new work at Treno Pizzeria & Taproom.

Thurber isn’t a name most Central Texans are familiar with, but in the early 1900s it played a huge role in civilizing the wild railroad town of Temple.

Temple was founded in 1881, but in the early days it was seldom referred to by its proper name. Instead, town settlers called their new home Mud Town and Tanglefoot.

Temple sits on rich black land that becomes sticky mud with a decent rain. It could be difficult to just cross the street after a shower or downpour, and pulling a wagon or even riding a horse on the roads was near impossible. Automobiles, still in their infancy also were using the roads when they were dry and passable.

City fathers knew the day of the motor-car was coming, and they needed to be ready. Plus, they desperately wanted to rid the city of its tacky nicknames. It was time to pave the roads to the future.

City leaders were ready, and so were the landowners. According to an article in the Temple Times, an overwhelming majority of Temple residents voted in August 1909 to increase property taxes in order to pave 22 blocks of the central business district.

The contract for the project was awarded to the Ockander Brothers of Waco, and on Oct. 7 a parade drawing more than 30,000 people attended a Jubilee Day parade on the dirt streets of downtown Temple.

Texas placed high tariffs on bricks imported from other states, so the city of Temple searched for Texas products to use in the paving project.

A new brick company was just getting started in Erath County near the town of Thurber, about 110 miles northwest of Temple. Thurber was known for coal production, and the town boomed with the start of a brick industry. It quickly became the largest city between Fort Worth and El Paso — and that’s a lot of Texas.

The plant covered five acres, produced 80,000 bricks a day and employed more than 800 people. Thurber bricks paved the city streets of Temple, and were used in projects such as Congress Avenue in Austin, the stockyards in Fort Worth and the seawall in Galveston — pretty iconic stuff.

In 2019, about 110 years after the bricks were used to pave downtown roads, the city of Temple began construction on South 1st Street between Central Avenue and Avenue B to widen sidewalks and create a more pedestrian-friendly environment. Thurber bricks were removed from the street and were to be hauled to a construction material landfill.

Part of the construction took place in front of the building that now houses Trenos, and Bruce Bates, one of the building’s owners, took an interest in the bricks.

“The bricks were in good condition, and Dad wanted to save them,” said Jacob Bates, Bruce’s son and co-owner of Treno’s and Bird Creek Burgers.

“He talked to Shane Schneider of R.T. Schneider Construction and came up with a plan. The bricks were piled up behind the building.”

A six-month project began in October 2019 to clean the bricks with a hammer chisel and start construction on the wall around Treno’s outdoor dining area, playground and stage.

“Dad saw the beauty in those 9-pound bricks,” Jacob said. “They fit nicely with the building’s decor and provided a privacy fence for our outdoor areas. That wall will be there forever.”

So, the next time you are in the Trenos courtyard sipping a cold one, watching the kids play or devouring a tasty brisket pizza, take a minute and look at the brick wall. There’s a lot of history in those reddish blocks.

Bruce Bates (left) and Jacob Bates stand next to a plague on the privacy wall behind Treno Pizzeria. The sign tells the story of the Thurber bricks and how they helped tame the streets of Temple. Courtesy photo

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Belton Lake

GOOD. Water lightly stained; 83 degrees; 1.13 feet low. The Fall pattern has begun as the lake has turnover. White bass are schooling in 45-53 feet of water. When the bite is aggressive, drop MAL Heavy Lures with silver blades and whitetails to fish vertically, and when the bite is holding to the bottom, allow the MAL Heavy Lure with a white blade and chartreuse tail to fish horizontally. Crappie are fair on minnows in brush piles and timber in water depths 14-25 feet. Catfish are good on chicken liver, live, and cut bait.

Stillhouse Hollow

GOOD. Water lightly stained; 85 degrees; 0.75 feet low. The Fall pattern has begun as the lake has turnover. White bass are schooling in 45-53 feet of water. When the bite is aggressive, drop MAL Heavy Lures with silver blades and whitetails to fish vertically, and when the bite is holding to the bottom allow the MAL Heavy Lure with a white blade and chartreuse tail to fish horizontally. Crappie are good on minnows and jigs in brush piles and timber. Blue catfish are good with fresh-cut bait and live bait.

WHAT’S HAPPENING CENTRAL TEXAS?

October 15, Friday - Dancing music with Hyway Traveler at Bo’s Barn. 8  p.m.

October 16, Saturday — Little Joe’s 81st birthday bash. The celebration begins at 4 p.m. and the first band — Tyler Bigley & The Copano Cowboys — performs at 5. At 6 p.m., Eric Flores will be on stage, followed by David Marez. Following an hour-and-a-half set by popular crooner Bobby Pulido, Little Joe y La Familia, plus many friends, will perform at 10:30 p.m.

October 16, Saturday - Van Cliburn Recital featuring Daniel Hsu. Sue & Frank Mayborn Performing Arts Center, Belton. 7:30 p.m.

October 16, Saturday - West Temple Oktoberfest. 3 West Alehouse & Grill. 11 a.m.

October 16, Saturday - 35 South burns up the dance floor at Bo’s Barn. 9 p.m.

October 16, Saturday - St. Luke Fest 2021, raffle, petting zoo, live music, carnival games, food vendors, silent auction, bingo and more. St. Luke’s Catholic Church. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

October 16, Saturday - Oktoberfest 2021, Barrow Brewing Company, Salado, noon to 10:30 p.m.

October 16, Saturday - Trunk-or-Treat at RE/MAX Temple-Belton at the intersection of South 31st and Canyon Creek. The event will be in the parking lot behind the building. Ghoulish games, terrifying treats and bone-chilling candy. 3-6 p.m.

October 16, Saturday - Cookie Decorating. Blackmon Community Center. 10 a.m.

October 16, Saturday - Michael Salgado at Schoepf’s BBQ in Belton, 6 p.m.

October 18-23 - The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Beltonian, Belton. 6-8 p.m.

October 19, Tuesday - UMHB Opera/Musical Theatre Scenes. A College of Visual & Performing Arts presentation. Sue & Frank Mayborn Performing Arts Center, Baugh Performance Hall. 7:30 p.m.

October 22, Friday - Unity Fest on the street in front of Ras Kitchen. Featuring Alex Marley and many other acts. 4 p.m. to midnight.

October 22-24 - “Leading Ladies” at Temple Civic Theatre. Ticket link: https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?actions=4&p=1

October 23, Saturday - Don Gregory Memorial Lions Club Golf Tournament. Sammons Golf Course. Contact Jeffrey Thigpen Thigpen.jeff@gmail.com to register or for sponsorship opportunities. 4-person scramble begins at 8:30 a.m.

October 23, Saturday - Oktoberfest 2021, Barrow Brewing Company, Salado, noon to 10:30 p.m.

October 23, Saturday - Fall Food Truck Festival, 3524 FM 2484 in Salado. Proceeds benefit Salado VFD. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m..

October 26, Tuesday - Military & First Responders Appreciation Day. Drive through hamburger box dinner for active duty military, veterans and first responders. Central Fire Station in Temple. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. or until food is gone.

October 26, Tuesday - The College of Visual & Performing Arts presents the UMHB Concert Choir and the Women’s Chorus. Sue & Frank Mayborn Performing Arts Center, Baugh Performance Hall. 7:30 p.m.

October 28-31 - “Leading Ladies” at Temple Civic Theatre. Ticket link: https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?actions=4&p=1

October 29, Friday - Uncasing of the Colors for the 607-member 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment of the 3rd Squadron, 36th Infantry Division, now headquartered at the Texas Army National Guard on Airport Road in Temple. Santa Fe Plaza, 10 a.m.

October 29, Friday - 1st Annual "Monster Mash Ballroom Bash" at Arthur Murray Temple. Join us for a few tricks, some yummy treats, and lots of dancing! Costumes are encouraged, and anyone is welcome — no dance experience needed, $15 per person. RSVP (254) 231-3444 7:45 p.m.

October 29, Friday - Calling all boys and ghouls! Don’t forget to stop by the Monster Mash at the Temple Railroad & Heritage Museum. Learn a few new dance moves at the Monster Mash prom. Grab a treat or two and have a spooktacular time. 6-8 p.m.

October 30, Saturday - The city of Temple will host Fright Fest from 6-8 p.m. at Santa Fe Plaza (301 W Avenue A). Attendees will be able to trick-or-treat, enter a costume contest and enjoy a fire dance show. This event is free to the public and registration is not required.

October 30, Saturday - Barktoberfest, Dog costume contest at 5:30; adoptable dogs on site. Barrow Brewing Co., Salado. 1-7 p.m.

October 30, Saturday - Barktoberfest, Dog costume contest at 5:30; adoptable dogs on site. Barrow Brewing Co., Salado. 1-7 p.m.

October 30, Saturday - Bulls & BBQ, Live bull riding followed by concert with Jake Worthington and Keith Braxton. Schoepf’s BBQ, Belton, Noon.

October 30, Saturday - Tablerock’s Fright Trail. One-half mile walking trail presents thrill, chills and haunting skits. Salado. 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

October 30, Saturday - BooCru at Crusader Stadium. UMHB in Belton. Wear your Halloween costume to the UMHB v. Belhaven game. Trick or Treat at 10 locations inside the stadium during the first half. Halftime parade of costumes on the football field. Noon.

October 30, Saturday - Trunk or Treat. VFW Post 1820, 3302 Airport Road in Temple. 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. in parking lot.

October 31, Sunday - Halloween! Have fun, be safe.

October 31, Sunday - Edward Scissorhands, free movie at Cultural Activities Center. In this 1990 film, a scientist builds an animated human being but dies before he can finish the assembly, leaving the young man with a freakish appearance accentuated by the scissor blades he has instead of hands. The event will include a pre and post-movie discussion with Professor Dr. Joseph Taberlet. 2 p.m.