On April 5 three Bel Air High School students, one Havre de Grace student, and one Eastern Tech student won a competition for creating a new ice cream flavor at TIC Gums sponsored though Cornell University to be sold at Broom’s Bloom in Bel Air, MD.

Bel Air students Sarah Ermatinger, Shayla Graves, and Rebecca Jones alongside Havre’ De Grace student Kevin Vickery and Eastern Tech student Monica Richmond joined together as a team on Saturday March 1 at 9:00 a.m. to create an ice cream flavor. On the first day Sarah Ermatinger suggested making a s’mores flavor, and the idea took hold. Over the next six Saturdays from 9:00 a.m. till noon these five students developed their modern s’mores flavor, team name, and marketing plan.

The sixth Saturday April 5, was the judging day where four teams who were competing to make the best ice cream flavor presented their ice cream and marketing plan to a panel of eight judges including two members of Broom’s Bloom. The Fantastic Five, the team name the five students called themselves, were last to present to the judges. After presentations of Jalapeno French Vanilla, Tropical Fruit, and Honey Pear, the team of five went up to present their Campfire Delight flavor.

After the judges deliberated in a different conference room for a while they came back into the room and announced that Campfire Delight would be sold at Broom’s Bloom the first week in May. For winning the competition the Fantastic Five were interviewed by WBAL TV 11 News on Tuesday April 8, get to go to Broom’s Bloom and make the ice cream there, and have their pictures taken for the Sun Newspaper.

“I honestly still can’t believe we won. I’m so happy,” said team member Rebecca Jones.

In addition to this every participant in the program received a certificate of completion and an ice cream maker machine. Also four of the participants, one from each competing team, were interviewed by a TIC Gum member and their interviews will be on YouTube. The member interviewed from the Fantastic Five was Sarah Ermatinger.

The teams TV interview will be aired Tuesday April 8 at either the 5:00 p.m. or 6:00 p.m. news on channel 11. April 28 the five will go to Broom’s Bloom to make their ice cream, with the debuting of the flavor reported to be May 2.

Each class the participants made two batches of ice cream trying out different techniques and flavors to come up with the best tasting ice cream. Mr. Tim Andon was the TIC employee that taught all the participants over the six weeks, with professors from Cornell University coming in to make presentations as well.