A Valpo Life in the Spotlight: Patti Tubbs Clark

The best feeling for a student is when they are rewarded for success in the classroom. Patti Tubbs Clark is a teacher who makes this possible for her students while bringing out their maximum potential. She educates them on the fundamentals of culinary arts, and everyone she teaches gets to enjoy their delicious creations at the end of each lesson.

Clark has spent her entire life in Northwest Indiana. She was very active in Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) to promote growth and leadership development through education. 

She went to Purdue University and has her undergraduate degree in restaurant, hotel, and institutional management. She also has a master’s degree in adult education. 

Clark was the president of Junior Achievement, which teaches business skills to create a company and make a product for the community. She was named Best Sales Person in the Chicagoland area in 1987 out of 75,000 students.

Today, Clark is a home economics teacher and the culinary arts pathway coordinator at Merrillville Community Schools. She works with students and prepares them to take their talents in culinary arts to the next level.

“I have students in two different clubs that I run,” Clark said. “One runs a small quick-service restaurant at the school, and the other is a club to work on culinary skills so that students can go to competitions. I believe in creating a lot of opportunities for the students, because they never know what their hot button is going to be that they’re ultimately interested in.”

These competitions are statewide and have the ability to reach the national level. She started the program at Merrillville four years ago with the goal of getting kids to see what that experience is like. 

“Those who go to national competitions have an increased opportunity to receive scholarships at colleges and universities,” Clark said. “You are able to showcase your skills and make connections with individuals in the industry that might be able to give you an opportunity for a job later.”

Clark also hosts classes that are open to local community members to not only hone their cooking skills but also help support the students.

“With these classes, I’m able to do fundraising for the students so they can make it to this point,” she said. “I’ve run three evening classes, including a pasta class, cookie class, and a jams and jelly class where individuals learn how to make apple butter, pepper jelly, a tri-berry jam, and salsa.”

These classes teach the important cooking processes like canning and storing as well as provide an opportunity to learn about homemade recipes and cultural delights. 

“It’s great at this time of year with Thanksgiving leftovers,” Clark said. “We’ve even made some kolacky cookies, sugar cookies, chocolate crinkles, and Russian tea cakes, which are often called snowballs or Mexican wedding cakes.”

Other foods that Clark has helped people make in her classes are homemade pasta, homemade tortillas, tamales, and a variety of cheeses. She helps bring the community homemade meals to school and offers catering opportunities.

“We did a pop-up food truck a couple of weeks ago and did some catering for the community,” Clark said. “We were making homemade potato chips, hot dogs, pulled pork, and barbecue sauce. We always make cookie trays and pumpkin rolls at this time of the year.”

Clark’s students are able to learn about the produce from the high school’s garden and get acclimated to a farm-to-fork strategy, an approach that she even uses at home.

“One project that we’ve done is hatching our eggs and going to the library, as they have a live feed for people to stream and watch chickens hatch,” Clark said. “We have as many as 500 students watching it. They move to the library for six weeks until they feather out.”

Teaching is a passion that Clark first discovered when she was in the hospital due to asthma growing up. Back then, there wasn’t a television in every hospital room. Her dad would bring in her 11-inch black-and-white television, setting it to channel 11. She was allowed to ask the nurse to turn it on and off, but they weren’t able to change the channel.

“I would watch ‘NOVA,’ Julia Child, ‘Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom,’ and Bob Vila when I was just a kid,” Clark said. “It was the only thing I was allowed to watch until they started getting television in the hospital rooms, but it helped inspire me to go down this path.”

When it comes to her relationship with the community, Clark believes that Northwest Indiana has a lot to offer. While she’s built connections in Valparaiso and Merrillville, she feels that the reach of the Region expands well beyond that.

“It’s great because any student who goes to Merrillville can get a job somewhere in Valparaiso,” Clark said. “We’re preparing students from Hobart, Lake Station, and Crown Point in Merrillville schools. Each high school has an FCCLA, and our students can take dual-credit courses for Ivy Tech in Valparaiso, Gary, and East Chicago. I feel like we have a bunch of communities here that really work together well, especially when it comes to education.”