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Jean and Ron Gregory made it a point to stop and eat at the Virginia Tech Block and Bridle Club's barbecue site at the State Fair |
WHEN most college students toss some beef
When Virginia Tech's Stuart Sanders and Blaine White cranked up the grill, they were tossing 600 pounds of pork, 250 pounds of beef and 200 pounds of chicken in their massive cookers.
And they still had 300 pounds of lamb set aside for the weekend.
It's all part of their job as barbecue chairmen of Virginia Tech's Block and Bridle Club, an organization that gives members the chance to "get involved promoting the ever-changing livestock industry."
Each year at the State Fair, the club sends dozens of students in two-day shifts to run a barbecue restaurant as a fundraiser for the club's many educational and philanthropic programs.
"It's our biggest money-maker of the year," said Sanders, who hails from Irvington in the Northern Neck. "When there's good weather and good attendance at the fair, we can make $60,000 at the fair."
With interest high in the State Fair's new location at the Meadow Event Park in Doswell this year, the Block and Bridle Club is hoping for those big numbers.
What's impressive to many who'll stop by for a pork- or beef-barbecue sandwich or chicken dinner, with custom-made baked beans and coleslaw, is the fact that there aren't chaperons running this show.
Students like Sanders and White are in charge at the tent, near the livestock area. They do the planning that will put more than a dozen volunteers through
On a good day, the crew will feed 2,000 fairgoers.
It helps, said White, that the club has been doing this long enough to have all the equipment and the game plan that make it all work.
They have trailers and portable equipment that creates a huge kitchen and prep area in one tent, and tables and serving equipment that make the restaurant in another.
"And we usually have one supervisor, we call them grill-masters, coming on while another's already done the fair for a year or two," he said. "That way, there's always one with experience to pass that along to the new one coming in."
Club members--mainly agriculture majors, though there are plenty of biology and business majors mixed in--usually come for two-day volunteer shifts at the Block and Bridle operation, working 12-hour shifts, with some time off for sleep.
"We always start the day by cooking our workers a nice breakfast, most often bacon, egg and cheese biscuits," he said. "After that gets old, we'll switch to something for variety."
The club also provides barbecue at other functions to raise money for events that will range from a Christmas toy drive to
Sanders said most often, the students who get involved simply do the Block and Bridle booth at the State Fair as their duty
But White said it may become more for him.
"I've enjoyed this so much, I'm really thinking about taking a look at work in the food industry somehow, maybe with barbecue," he said, noting that he got his start watching his dad cook out on a grill. "It just gets in your blood."
This year, when you visit the barbecue booth, there's another Virginia Tech offering nearby.
The Virginia Tech Dairy Club sells milk and milkshakes.
Said club member Dave Shepherd of Blacksburg, "They're all-natural and the perfect way to follow
Rob Hedelt: 540/374-5415
Email: rhedelt@freelancestar.com
