Oregon Coast Culinary Institute student Josh Johnson and a talented teammate from California created a scene of a soldier returning home to his daughter out of a single block of ice.

FAIRBANKS, AK – Over the past two weeks, two Southwestern Oregon Community College instructors and a student made headlines as competitors in Alaska in 2010 World Ice Art Championships.  

As part of a giant winter festival known as Ice Alaska, ice carving competitions are held each year bringing some of the world’s finest and most talented ice carvers to Fairbanks, Alaska.

Executive Chef Chris Foltz of the Southwestern Dining Services, a world-class ice and wood carver with multiple medals, organized the college’s participation. Also participating were Woojay Poynter, a Pastry and Baking Arts instructor at Oregon Coast Culinary Institute, and Josh Johnson, a student at OCCI and employee of Dining Services under Foltz.

The event was broken down into two main competitions: Single-block and multi-block. In the three-day single-block competition, a pair of carvers is given a giant ice block measuring 5’x8’x3’. Foltz, teaming up with another accomplished carver from Wisconsin, carved a tense scene of a saber-tooth cat attacking a pterodactyl’s nest.

Johnson, paired up with a talented carver from Southern California, carved a touching scene of a soldier coming home to his daughter. A photo of the two working together was featured on the front page of the local paper, the Daily News Miner.

The highlight of the event was a multi-block competition where each team of four carvers was given ten ice blocks measuring 4’x3’x6’ and weighing over 6000 pounds. In this six-day competition, Foltz and his team created a scene of Moses parting the Red Sea. A photo of him carving a twelve foot tall wave was also featured on the cover of the local paper. A nearly life-sized carving of Moses stood atop a twenty foot high platform. The effort earned the team fourth place in Foltz’s first appearance at the event.

Poynter worked with a team of international carvers creating the image of Charles Ebbets’ famous photo titled “Lunch atop a skyscraper” where the ice silhouette of workers stood 18 feet tall off the ground and against the backdrop of ice cityscape.

The director of the program personally invited the Southwestern to return to the event in 2011, a tremendous opportunity for OCCI and Southwestern to gain exposure and recruit future students.

The Ice Alaska draws about 45,000 spectators each year.  The event has been held each year since 1988 and the legacy goes even farther back.  The event also draws international attention from the top artists around the world.