![\"Culinary](\"http:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/TSTC-Culinary-Arts-Scholarship.jpg\")
<\/a>dinner for Gala guests.<\/p>\n\u201cYou\u2019ve been seeing this young lady running around and working hard to give you the best dinner experience,\u201d said Garcia. \u201cTonight and throughout the semester she has shown just how deserving she is to receive this scholarship.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Lee, culinary has been in her life since the beginning. Her grandmother owned a surf and turf restaurant for 45 years. Her parents, both skilled cooks, worked and met at that restaurant and later owned a bar and grill of their own.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were my seed of encouragement to do this program and my inspiration,\u201d said Lee.<\/p>\n
However, Lee said her driving force was her son. She wanted to provide a better life for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to live paycheck to paycheck anymore. I no longer want to be expendable,\u201d she said. \u201cMost importantly, I want to show my son that even if you don\u2019t start out making the right choices in life there is always time to change your path. Nothing is set in stone, and I\u2019m living proof.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lee said that through the Culinary Arts program she has found her weaknesses and strengths, as well acknowledge she did not know she had.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of TSTC I now have higher goals for myself,\u201d said Lee. \u201cThis program has given me the confidence to step out of my comfort zone. The sky’s the limit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The scholarship recipient hopes to pursue bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees and work toward becoming a health inspector. She expects to graduate in Spring 2017.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere at TSTC we have been given the solid foundation from which to begin, and our instructors have fostered good habits, creative thinking and the confidence to go forth and know exactly what our worth is. They are setting us up for success.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(HARLINGEN) – Texas State Technical College Culinary Arts student Leslie Lee recently received a $500 scholarship to put toward tuition to help her realize her dream of a college education. TSTC Provost Dr. Stella Garcia presented Lee with the scholarship during the college\u2019s annual Noche de Gala–a surprise for Lee, who was working with her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-harlingen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1151,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149\/revisions\/1151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}