Jason Smith, the cafeteria manager at Isonville Elementary (Elliott County), recently was named as winner of season 13 of the Food Network Star competition.
Provided by Food Network
Jason Smith, the cafeteria manager at Isonville Elementary (Elliott County), was named the winner of season 13 of the Food Network Star competition. Smith went up against 12 other hopefuls in the show, which was judged by Food Network stars Bobby Flay and Giada De Laurentiis.
This recent win was not the first time Smith has been featured on the Food Network. Late last year, he won the network’s Holiday Baking Championship. He wowed the celebrity chef judges with recipes passed down from his Laurel County family, and was the first home baker to win the competition in the show’s three seasons.
Smith, who has worked at the 106-student Elliott County school for six years, developed a love of baking in his grandmother’s kitchen on his family’s tobacco and cattle farm. Instead of working in the fields, Smith would work in the kitchen.
“I was OK doing the farm work when I needed to,” he said, “but I’d rather be in the kitchen helping granny, my aunts and my mom get food together for everybody that was working.”
To learn more about Smith, read this Kentucky Teacher story that ran after his Holiday Baking Championship win.
I am a school library media specialist at a south central KY elementary school and my mom and I have enjoyed watching Jason’s journey on Food Network! Thanks, Jason for representing “the great state of Kentucky” in such a positive way and for all you’ve done for Kentucky’s public schools and the children!