Panther Backers Cook Up a Big Win

May 8, 2020May 17, 2020 Paul Clark

The Panther Backers Booster Club hosted it’s inaugural Expo and Taste of Wilmot in March.

This is a county deal that you do not want to miss out on next year. “Man there is some awesome food in such a small community,” said Wilmot Athletic Director Herm Christiansen.

The event offered mouth-watering samples from many local food vendors for only $12 per ticket. Participating sponsors were:

Hwy 45 Farm Stand
Wilmot Stage Stop
Antioch Pizza
The Smokin’ Finn BBQ
Hansen’s Ice Cream Parlor
Wisconsin Style BBQ, LLC
Subway
Village View
Papa Savario’s Pizza
Rosati’s Pizza
Bodi’s Bake Shop

The food was of the highest quality. The Stage Stop was offering premium clam chowder with very tender and tasty steak and chicken samples. The Subway sisters laid out full subs and cookies. The BBQ stands put out full BBQ sandwiches with the freshest buns and the juiciest meat. The Hwy 45 Farm Stand cooked up hot samples of their fresh meats. Bodi’s Bake Shop laid out a sweet array of doughnuts and cakes. And Hansen’s Ice Cream Parlor offered up several flavors of ice cream samples. You could go back for seconds, or thirds, if you had enough room in your stomach. Did I mention fresh and mouth-watering?

The food quality, and quantity, was amazing. You CAN’T beat this $12 deal.

Legendary youth football coach, Brent Brenner said, “I was full for two days after the event.”

The ‘Expo” part of the event included booths to meet local businesses, a bouncy house, face painting, Twin Lakes K9 Rex, and live music performances from the Wilmot a cappella group and the theater department.

The Panther Backers Booster Club is an all volunteer group that works to raise money to promote, support, and provide for all student clubs (academic, activity, athletics). The PBBC will award 3 scholarships in the areas of: Activity, Athletic, and Spirit of Wilmot.

PBBC vice president, Michele Gough, said, “The Expo & Taste was our first BIG fundraiser since rebranding and rebooting the booster club. As a team the board worked very hard for months to be able to pull off this event. It felt good to touch base with the local community and business and work with them . They had lots of questions about what the Expo & Taste was, where the money was going and how it would turn out, what is the booster club, what do we do. After answering every question we could to give them the information they needed, we finally got to ‘the big day‘”

Panther Backer Board (L-R) = **Rochelle Campton**, **Nicole Valach**, **Michele Gough**, and **Esther Amenson**. “The new Panther Backer board is awesome!! They have been so creative in trying to find ways to support our co-curricular activities from the Expo, to renting out seats at games, to working every event that requests a concession stand. They have been able to support our students and organizations in so many different ways, and now bringing the businesses into the school has just been great to watch,” said **Christiansen**.

The 2020 Expo and Taste of Wilmot had a bouncy house and face painting for the kids. **Gough** added, “It turned out better than we were ever expecting. We had a lot of walk ins. And as for it being our first big fundraiser and a huge success, we hope to continue this event every year. It was amazing to see families that attended that were not local, and that was even great because it meant our publicizing for our event was working and people got our information. The end result was fabulous.“

**Erica Stohr-Feeney** (left) and **Ashly Hamby** run the Subway table at the 2020 Expo and Taste of Wilmot. Subway (Twin Lakes & Paddock Lake) is notoriously a big supporter of local sports. They are the County Sports Page’s 2019 Sports Business of the Year.

The **HWY 45 Farm Stand** was a big contributor to the event. The won 1st place in “Best Culinary Presentation.

Local food vendors line the commons at Wilmot High School to offer fresh samples at the 2020 Expo and Taste of Wilmot. **Christiansen** added, “*Seeing the community and our students/staff working together at the event was awesome.”*

The **Wilmot Stage Stop** won 1st place in the “Best Taste” category. They served up some juicy steak and chicken samples, and an amazing batch of clam chowder.

My advice for 2021 = Don’t miss this Panther Backer event. Just sample small bites, and work your way around all the vendors. I got too excited at the beginning, then had a real struggle to ‘finish the course‘.

Here is the list, again. Hopefully you will support these local food vendors. They are real community players, and serve up some high quality food.