{"id":248801,"date":"2026-05-18T17:11:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T21:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/18\/wekiva-culinary-program-director-wins-2026-technology-award\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T17:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T21:15:08","slug":"wekiva-culinary-program-director-wins-2026-technology-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/18\/wekiva-culinary-program-director-wins-2026-technology-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Wekiva Culinary program director wins 2026 Technology Award"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wekiva Culinary program director wins 2026 Technology Award<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/theapopkachief.com\/wekiva-culinary-program-director-wins-2026-technology-award\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-18 17:11:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: theapopkachief.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Chef Christopher Bates, program director of\u00a0the Magnet Academy of Culinary Arts at Wekiva High School, recently won the 2026 Technology Award from the Center for the Advancement of Foodservice Education (CAF\u00c9).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis win is another example of the hard work Chef Bates puts into this program for his students,\u201d said Melissa Byrd, Orange County School Board District 7 member, in a text message to The Apopka Chief. \u201cHe is constantly striving to provide the Culinary Magnet students with every opportunity to grow their skills in a meaningful way that makes them workforce ready.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The award includes a $1,000 check, an opportunity for a profile in CAF\u00c9\u2019s e-magazine titled \u201cThe Gold Medal Classroom,\u201d andregistration\u00a0for CAF\u00c9\u2019s 2026 Deans & Directors Retreat and Leadership Conference in Chicago, according to the award letter.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe follow some pretty unique and occasionally controlled chaos, crazy ideas that pop into my head, and we try them, and they work a lot of the time,\u201d Bates said\u00a0in a phone interview with the Chief. \u201cIt\u2019s just nice to see that the national organization that is dedicated to the advancement of culinary education sees what we\u2019re doing over here in this tiny little high school in Wekiva and recognizes it as being outstanding.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Bates is most excited about winning an all-expense-paid three-day training conference at RATIONAL, which he calls \u201cthe best producer of intelligent ovens in the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just that you\u2019re going to do training \u2014 you\u2019re spending time with the people who designed it, who engineered it, who crafted the software that makes it work,\u201d Bates said. \u201cI\u2019m getting to pick the brains of the people who train like the executive chef for Ritz-Carlton \u2014 and…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wekiva Culinary program director wins 2026 Technology Award https:\/\/theapopkachief.com\/wekiva-culinary-program-director-wins-2026-technology-award\/ Publish Date: 2026-05-18 17:11:00 Source Domain:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":248802,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/theapopkachief.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Christopher-Bates-left-poses-with-guests-at-the-March-3-Taste-of-Wekiva-event-at-Wekiva-High-School.-Photo-by-Dana-OConnor.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-248801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248801"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248801"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248804,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248801\/revisions\/248804"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}