Annual dinner and auction benefit Chefs for Kids

The 19th annual Chefs for Kids dinner and auction took place March 20 in the Champagne Ballroom at Paris Las Vegas.

Chefs for Kids provides nutrition education to students in high-need schools in the Clark County School District. It is a joint venture of local chefs (American Culinary Federation Chefs Las Vegas) and the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, which develops the curriculum for first- and second-grade children in the schools served.

More than 480 formally attired guests participated in the silent auction that offered 60 extensive packages, including restaurant dine-arounds, vacations, a signed Greg Maddux baseball and Cubs jersey, golf rounds, tickets for NASCAR Truck Series Race, four box seats for the San Francisco Giants and the Arizona Diamondbacks, cookware and crystal and china sets.

While guests Barbara and Stan Jones, Gigi and Wade Allred, Bruce and Barbara Lee Woollen, Jewel Brooks, Jack Libby, Amy and Danny Tarkanian, Pam and Daryl Dempsey, Sally and Larry McKinney, Gloria and Marvin Simon, Mel Garroway, Karri and Greg Jones, Joel Stelzner, Shelly Brown, Janice Allen, Ginger and Dan Anderson, Jeanne Greenawalt, Irais and Bob Kolesar, Ri and Peter Bucchieri, Barbara and Tom McDonald, Gae and Perry Basch, Babette and Robert Medcalf, and Fafie and Jeff Moore partook of the reception's cooked-to-order crepes and butler-passed hors d'oeuvres, they bid in the silent auction while enjoying Parisian tunes played by an accordionist.

Once guests were seated in the dining room -- where pastel roses and hydrangeas graced the tables by Botanica -- dancers from Missy Cochran Entertainment performed "Viva La Can Can." Grammy-Award winner Larry Hart sang the national anthem.

Linda Montoya, Chefs for Kids' president; chef Christopher Johns, Chefs for Kids chairman; and John Carothers, vice president of the University of Nevada, Reno, spoke about the program. The five-course dinner was prepared by Paris Las Vegas chefs Sherman Branick, Thomas Trevethan and Erik Moritz.

Christian Kolberg conducted a live auction for 13 dinner packages to be prepared in the home by local chefs. More guests participating in the benefit were Ginger and Dan Anderson, Lynn and Mark Lerner, Sandy Peltyn, Stephen Montoya, Kelly and Brian Iriye, Karen Hinton, Isabel Pfeiffer, Kelly and Doug Ireland, Ann Wood, Shelly and Phil Tynan, Buzz Thurber, Margie and Steve Wilkinson, and Nelda and Gerald Casas.