Two years ago, Christina Gamble's sister Tracey nearly won the School of Hotel Administration's most prestigious student award -- the Joseph Drown Special Prize. Inspired by her sister's efforts, senior Christina Gamble applied for the 2001 Drown Prize -- and is bringing it home to share with Tracey.
"I told Tracey I won it for both of us," said Gamble, who will donate a portion of the $15,000 prize stipend to a Buffalo after-school program for underprivileged children, with whom she worked throughout high school.
The annual Drown Prize is one of the most generous student awards presented at Cornell. It is given to the student who not only holds the promise of making significant contributions to the hospitality industry, but one who has demonstrated independence and perseverance toward that goal. Established and endowed by hotel owner Joseph W. Drown, who died in 1982, the Drown Foundation has awarded numerous scholarships to students in the hotel school in addition to this lucrative prize.
Drown Prize winners are chosen not only for their academic efforts, but also for their career goals and personal aspirations. Gamble, who worked in restaurants since high school and throughout her university career, impressed the selection committee with a combination of academic achievements, operational savvy and diligence.
Gamble has received a Frank H.T. Rhodes Scholarship and a scholarship from the Cornell Club of Western New York and is a member of the Hotel School's honor society, Ye Hosts, as well. In May of last year, she represented the school as an honoree in the National Restaurant Association's Salute to Excellence.
But hands-on experience is Gamble's strong suit, as indicated in her Drown Prize application where she stated that " rather than having snapshots of the industry with only summer internships, I have been a daily part of the hospitality industry."
Gamble has walked the talk. She has worked almost full time since her sophomore year, including a teaching assistantship for five hotel school classes in food and beverage management. In addition, since 1997 Gamble has served as the student manager of Banfi's Restaurant in the Statler Hotel on campus.
In 1998 she added student supervisor to her job description, and she was responsible for the continuous training and management of 20 students and for training and supervising front house staff -- a job she has committed to through this July in order to train summer employees. It's been an exhausting -- and invaluable -- experience.
"By working nearly full time while at Cornell, I've had a chance to apply what I've learned in the classroom directly into practice on almost a daily basis," she said.
After July, it's on to Beverly Hills where Gamble will serve with Four Seasons as an assistant food and beverage manager at the Regent Beverly Willshire. In the summer of 2000, she served as a food and beverage intern at the Four Seasons hotel in Chicago, a 326-room, five-star hotel.
Gamble plans to use part of the Drown Prize toward educational loan payments and the rest toward a five-year plan of becoming fluent in Japanese and Spanish.
"Much of my love for the hospitality industry is centered in international and cultural aspects of the business, [and] I feel lucky to have come in contact with the broadest array of cultures that any industry can offer on any given day," she said. "I plan to use the award to cover costs of learning these languages so I can better serve as a communications agent for both employees and customers in the industry."
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