Scathing, spicy wings set mouths on fire during the Business Professionals of America (BPA) club’s fundraiser on November 15. BPA club members organized the fundraiser together to help raise money for the competitions that they will participate in later this school year.
The fundraiser was organized as Bowie’s very own rendition of the popular YouTube series, “Hot Ones” produced by the YouTube channel “First We Feast.” In those videos, celebrities participate in a game-show-like interview where they eat increasingly spicy chicken wings.
“This was only our second fundraiser,” BPA president senior Kaitlyn Kaiser said. “We want to do more fundraisers to get students involved.”
Last year during competitions, BPA students needed fundraising to support finances for common costs during their stay, so students had to pay out of pocket for their food, travel, and activities they participated in. This year BPA leaders attended a leadership camp that students also had to pay for.
“We wish we could’ve brought more people,” Kaiser said. “But people just weren’t able to pay for it, and at that time we didn’t have the money as a club to pay for more people.”
The actual fundraising aspect of the Hot Ones competition was obtained from vote sales. These votes decided which teachers would participate in the competition. The club sold individual votes to students for one dollar each. Some students purchased only one vote, however others purchased multiple.
“The students started kind of contributing one dollar here and there to the fundraiser through their votes,” assistant principal Hector Munoz-Levya said. “Then it’s accumulated to me being in the top-four.”
History teachers Karl Lauer and Alejandro Garcia were also in the top four staff members with the most votes and faced off during first lunch. Both Lauer and Garcia had seen the show before and had a general understanding of what they were getting themselves into.
“I’ve seen the competitions on YouTube and they look horrible,” Garcia said. “If I had to eat the whole wing it would not have been survivable for me.”
While Bowie’s version of the competition was not a replica of the original, in the original “Hot Ones” competition the contestants were required to finish eating the entire wing; while in Bowie’s rendition, the contestants were not required to eat the whole wing. However, every other component of the competition was there, making the contest a challenging feat.
“Bowie’s version of Hot Ones has got to be on par with what happens in the original,” Lauer said. “Or at least very similar to what contestants in the real competition have to go through.”
The varying levels of wing spiciness were measured on the Scoville Scale, which is a method of measurement used to determine how spicy peppers are.
“I mean, I ate something with a three million Scoville rating,” Lauer said. “I didn’t think I’d ever do that.”
According to the Scoville scale website, the scale is determined by the amount of capsaicin in a pepper. Capsaicin is the compound that gives the pepper its heat and makes it spicy, so the more capsaicin in the pepper, the higher the Scoville rating will be. The scale ranges from 0 to 16 million Scoville Units.
“The third, second, and last wings were brutal,and it went from like 1000 Scoville to one million to three million I believe,” Munoz said. “Once I crossed into the million Scovilles is when I started to feel a little dizzy and kind of lose my balance and breathe heavily.”
Lauer and Garcia both had similar reactions to the wings, feeling that it was easy in the beginning but got tougher as time went on. Both agreed the dropper was the worst sauce that they tried during the competition.
“When she added the one that was hotter than the dropper at the end I could barely taste the last one because my mouth was still on fire from the dropper,” Lauer said. “So, it didn’t seem as bad but it probably was.”
The history teachers raced each other to finish their increasingly spicy wings while answering questions about the subjects they teach. The questions ranged from ancient empire textbook content to questions on popular music references.
“The club met and planned the fundraiser, then we had to focus on promoting it,” Kaiser said. “Figuring out the questions took some time.”
The club is designed to help members gain business experience in high school and utilize opportunities like internships and careers.
“I want to go into hospitality or something related to business,” Kaiser said. “So learning how to do things like that now will help me in a future career.”
