The Sabine Area Restaurant Association is dedicating Taste of the Triangle 2008 to Molly Dahm, director of Lamar University’s hospitality management and culinary arts programs.
Dahm, an assistant professor in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, was a recipient of Lamar’s 2005 University Merit Award for outstanding performance in the classroom and has served as a member of the association’s board of directors since 1998. She is actively involved in the group’s education committee and the annual Chef’s Delight fund-raiser, which help provide training, scholarships and equipment for Lamar students seeking careers in the hospitality and food-service industries.
“Molly just never stops working,” said association President Rich Courville. “She never stops supporting the Sabine Area Restaurant Association and her students. She is dedicated to the restaurant association and the food-service industry like no other person I know.”
Taste of the Triangle, scheduled from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Feb. 5 in the Beaumont Civic Center, is the association’s annual fund-raiser. The evening will showcase the region’s finest foods, served by more than 50 Southeast Texas restaurant and beverage companies. Lamar University is among the organizations benefitting from the event.
The evening will also feature the big-band sounds of the 20-member Night & Day Orchestra, under the direction of Wayne Dyess, professor of music and director of jazz studies at Lamar.
Dahm is regarded as Southeast Texas’ “hospitality expert,” Courvill said. For the past four years, she has chaired Chef’s Delight along with Courville and Frank Messina.
In the classroom, she shares 20 years of domestic and international experience in the hospitality industry with her students. Dahm has managed convention centers, hotels, casinos, private clubs and restaurants, including one for media mogul and philanthropist Ted Turner in Atlanta. She was a member of the 1984 Summer Olympics hospitality management team in Los Angeles, Calif.
Since coming to Lamar in 1996, Dahm has taught 25 different courses on topics ranging from wine appreciation to graduate research methods. She was instrumental in Lamar’s obtaining American Culinary Federation accreditation for the culinary arts program – one of eight accredited programs in Texas.
Dahm says she is particularly proud of the fact that program graduates are represented in key industry management positions throughout Southeast Texas and beyond. “The restaurant association was instrumental in the success of those students,” she said. “Many graduates who are now industry leaders continue to contribute to and shape Lamar’s program. They’ve come full circle.”
Her devotion to the restaurant association stems from a philosophy that giving is just as important as receiving. “We want our students to understand that to be successful in business, they must be active in giving back to their communities,” she said. “That’s what we stress to our students, that’s what we build into our academic program, and that’s what restaurant association members do. We wouldn’t be able to offer our students the quality program we do without the association’s support.”
Dahm is active in a number of professional organizations. She earned a bachelor of arts from the University of Georgia in linguistics and language, bachelor’s and master’s degrees in hotel and restaurant management from Florida International University and a doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Houston.
Tickets to Taste of the Triangle are on sale at the Beaumont Civic Center box office, (409) 838-3435, at H-E-B on Dowlen Road, at Central Mall, from ticketmaster.com or may be charged by phone at (409) 833-7747. Patrons may purchase tickets for $15 in advance or $20 at the door on the day of the event.
