United Supermarkets and Market Street presented a brand-new, custom built smoker to culinary arts students at George H.W. Bush New Tech Odessa Friday.
The ECISD Culinary Arts BBQ team will be the first group of students in the region to use the new smoker as their state competition approaches in May. While the culinary students will be the first in line to use the smoker, it’s intended to be shared with culinary teams across the Permian Basin.
It was built by Arnis Robbins, pit master of Texas Monthly Top 10 barbecue joint Evie Mae’s BBQ based in Wolfforth. The smoker is valued at about $20,000.
In addition to the smoker, United Supermarkets and Market Street donated a gift card of $1,000 to the BBQ team so they can purchase meat and other supplies as they prepare for state competition.
Culinary Arts Teacher Christina Acosta said they were honored by the generosity and support of United Supermarket and Market Street.
On May 5 and 6, ECISD students will participate in the State High School Barbecue Competition in Round Rock at the Dell Diamond with more than 80 teams from around the state.
They placed 34th or 35th out of the 80 teams that were there last year. Acosta said they have a practice April 27 in back of NTO.
There are two teams — one has six students and the other has seven.
“This is the second year for us to participate at the state level. These kids … are smart, witty, intelligent and hardworking. I once heard a student describe competition by saying it helped me see in myself what my teacher already saw,” Acosta said.
“The kids learn teamwork, responsibility and how to hold each other accountable. They will be up by 4 a.m. to get their fires started with their last turn-in time of 3 p.m. From there, they will clean up, break down and load up all their equipment before heading to the award ceremony. I often say to the students, I know I asked a lot of you and you always rise to the challenge. And today I’m asking and they never cease to me. On Thursday morning we depart, there won’t be a band and a pep rally. What we do have is the support of local businesses like United Supermarket, that helps us provide opportunities like this for our students to grow into their potential. For that, we’re incredibly grateful,” Acosta said.
She added that United has been supportive in so many ways, always going above and beyond and thinking about what they need before they ask.
Robbins said he has built all the smokers in his restaurant.
“We’ve got four and then I actually had started kind of a side business building pits,” but Robbins said he had to shut down during the pandemic so he could focus on keeping his restaurant open.
Coming out of the pandemic, steel prices and the price of everything “shot through the roof.”
“It didn’t make sense for me to try to get back into it, so I just haven’t been doing a lot of building for the last two years. But when United reached out, it was kind of a no-brainer,” Robbins said.
He added that they had a previous working relationship with United.
“This is actually the second pit that I’ve built for a high school barbecue team. The other is Frenship … The concept is unbelievable. The fact that these students are able to cook barbecue at school, it’s incredible and it’s really, really cool. It’s just really an honor to be involved and I know the impact that barbecue has had in my life. I can’t imagine what it does for some of these students,” Robbins said.
Alejandra Lozano, a barbecue team member, said she’s very excited about the smoker. She said it is gorgeous and “you can pull out everything. We can keep our beans right here, which I’m really excite about.”
“It’s just very beautiful and I’m honestly so thankful that United gave this to us and is giving us the opportunity to really show what we can do for the culinary program,” Lozano said.
The Midland ISD culinary program will also receive a $1,000 gift card for their program. Robbins, who was on hand for the presentation Friday, also gave ECISD culinary students a brief workshop on some of his now famous barbecue techniques.
