Dairy Day at St. Francis Academy in Bally featured two trifectas – three teams and three dairy princesses.
For the first time in its 21-year history, an alumni team assembled to challenge the teachers’ and students’ teams. Each team made 120 cookie ice cream sandwiches, featuring homemade chocolate chip cookies.
The teams made a combined 360 ice cream sandwiches using 30 gallons of ice cream and over 700 cookies. Each team then worked on a proper presentation of their dairy sandwiches.
While the teachers finished the prescribed amount first, the judges deemed the students’ creation and display looked the most appealing and declared them the winner. And they declared a tie for second place.
Dairy Day is the school’s celebration of the end of the school year as well as the national June is Dairy Month event. It is a contest between the teachers’ team and students’ team which is comprised of two students from each grade, K through 8 and this year an alumni team.
Prior to the contest, three members of the Berks County Dairy Princess team gave a presentation on why milk needs to be a part of the students’ dairy diets. The newly crowned Berks County Dairy Princesses are Brittany Haag, the Dairy Princess, her sister, Samantha Haag, is the Alternate Dairy Princess and Chloe Shealer is the Lil’Miss Dairy Princess.
Brittany Haag told the students: “to get three servings of dairy every day with dairy products such as milk, cheese and yogurt. Also, don’t forget to thank a dairy farmer for their hard work providing the delicious milk for you and me as we celebrate June as National Dairy Month.”
Event judges included: Missey Pierson and Brittany Hockenbury from BB&T bank, Carol Beadencup from Bally Block Company, Barbara Moyer of Moyers Catering, Lorena Robbins from Manieri Meats, Senator Robert Mensch, Fr. George Valliamthadathil, from DeSales University and Michael Kriebel, an alumnus who has attended the event every year since he was in kindergarten.
The students’ team included: kindergartners – Nathaniel Cooke, Brielle Mathias; Grade 1 – Patrick Lentz, Kaitlyn Haines; Grade 2 – Sarah Bertino, Aiden Robbins; Grade 3 – Yana Alderfer, Jackson Smith; Grade 4 – Liam Cunningham, Mary James; Grade 5 – Reagan Lutchkus, Robert Houk; Grade 6 – Theresa Patterson, Anthony Adamkovic; Grade 7 – Victoria Hayes, Andrew Dalickas; and Grade 8 – Chris Yerger, Alex Bialeck.
Event sponsors include: BB&T bank, Bally Block Company, Manieri Meats, Moyer Catering, Reppert’s Candy, and Bob Hilbert Sportswear.
