PVHS culinary student hosts Forest at Night dinner event

Senior Timmy Stutzman will present "Forest at Night," his Pahrump Valley High School culinary capstone, on Wednesday, April 22, with a reception at 5:30 p.m. and dinner service at 6:00 p.m. in the PVHS Culinary Room at 501 E Calvada Blvd. Tickets are $25 and must be purchased in advance through the event’s online ticketing page; there will be no door sales.

The event is built as an immersive, student-driven dining experience that the announcement promises will let guests "experience an unforgettable evening of food, atmosphere, and creativity." Stutzman’s four-course progression lists wild berry sorbet to open, followed by garden vegetable soup, a main of pork tenderloin with mashed potatoes and asparagus, and chocolate mousse for dessert. The lineup is designed to test menu planning, timing and front-of-house service under real conditions in the school kitchen.

"Forest at Night" functions as a formal capstone for PVHS’s culinary pathway within the school’s Hospitality and Tourism CTE offerings. The course of study at Pahrump Valley High School serves roughly 1,333 students in 2024-25 enrollment figures, and the Nye County School District has been soliciting employer input through a 2026 Local Needs Assessment and CTE survey to align programs with local workforce openings. The capstone format requires students to manage supplies, budgeting, food-safety compliance and guest service—skills that local employers routinely list in job postings.

PVHS’s culinary instruction is supported by in-class leadership and community precedents: the PVHS staff directory lists Principal Desiree Veloz and Sam Jones in the Career and Technical Education department, and local coverage has credited "Chef Jones" as a leader of the culinary program. The school has staged similar community-facing events this year, including a March 4 "Savoring Senior Year" five-course fine-dining service and prior theater-collaboration dinners from 2024–2025, giving Stutzman a direct operational model to follow.

Those prior events have produced measurable community engagement and small revenue that funds program activity. Student coverage of a campus bake sale recounts a rapid sale that "We made $24 in just 30 minutes selling them to teachers," a detail that illustrates how hands-on events supply both financial and experiential resources for the program. The district’s Work-Based Learning plan and CTE alignment efforts are aimed at converting those classroom experiences into internships, apprenticeships and hires.

Local hospitality employers including Pahrump Nugget and Lakeside, operated by Golden Casino Group, and Saddle West advertise food-service and kitchen openings in Pahrump, illustrating a near-term employment market for graduates with culinary training. For Stutzman and his classmates, a successful public capstone can function as a credential for those employers and as a public demonstration of whether the PVHS culinary track is producing career-ready talent that benefits the county’s hospitality economy.

The April 22 dinner will be a public test of that hypothesis: a single evening in the PVHS Culinary Room where menu execution, food-safety practice and guest service will be on display to neighbors, potential employers and district leaders who are tracking returns on CTE investment. Community members seeking tickets or more event logistics should consult Pahrump Valley High School channels for the event’s online ticketing page and arrival instructions.