BERNE — Everything Amanda Tubbs tries — from cheerleading for Berne-Knox-Westerlo sports teams to crashing cars at the Altamont Fair’s demolition derby — she does with enthusiasm.

Her latest feat, at age 16, is placing first in the state in a culinary arts competition. She’ll represent New York at the national competition in Kansas City in June.
"I’m really excited about it," Tubbs told The Enterprise Monday night. "I’ve never flown in a plane."

She came straight from a softball game Monday to be honored by the school board. She plays third base and some outfield for the varsity BKW team.
"My coach says I have an awesome arm," said Tubbs. "I love softball...I love being part of a team."

She is one of 13 BKW students who ride the bus to the Schoharie Career and Technical School each day after attending six periods of classes at Berne.
Her favorite class during the first part of her school day is English. "I like writing my own stories and poems," she said.

Tubbs began the program for culinary arts this September, at the start of her junior year.
"Ever since I was little, I loved cooking with my mom," said Tubbs. Her mother, Ruth, works as a janitor for the Berne-Knox-Westerlo schools. "We used to bake all the time and make a lot of home-cooked meals....," said Tubbs. "My dream is to open my own restaurant."
Tubbs would like to have her restaurant serve intimate dinners for two — "nice, candlelit dinners, really romantic," she said.

Tubbs competed two weeks ago in the regionals, held at Union College in Troy, which qualified her for the state competition, held in Syracuse.
The competition consists of taking a written test and then setting a table and serving patrons "like in a five-star restaurant," she said.
"There’s silverware all over the place — lots of extra forks and spoons — and it has to be set up perfect," said Tubbs. "You have to fold the napkins so they stand up, even when they shake the table."

The shape she chose for her napkins was the atrium lily, with three standing points.
Once the table is set, the patrons sit down. "You introduce yourself and wait on them," said Tubbs. "You have to be really professional and polite....You serve from the left and clear from the right, unless you’re serving drinks."
Tubbs has had real-life practice waiting on tables at Camp Pinnacle, she said. She thought to herself, during the competitions, "I’m here to have fun. I’ll just go in with my bubbly personality."

During the state-wide awards ceremony, she said, as the winners’ names were announced from the bottom up, she assumed she hadn’t won anything.
"All of a sudden, I heard my name," Tubbs recalled. "I started jumping up and down and I started to cry."
"She knowsher own mind"

Tubbs has done well in other competitions, showing the same nerve and joie de vivre. Last summer, she competed successfully in the demolition derby at the Altamont Fair, coming in fourth in her first attempt at the sport.
"My dad and my brother always did it," she said of her father, Thomas, who works for the Knox Highway Department, and her 29-year-old brother, Tommy. Tubbs also has two older sisters — Cindy and Penny, who are in their thirties. "We used to go the fair all the time to watch them do it."
Tubbs went on, "So many people say, ‘A girl can’t do it.’ I wanted to prove them wrong."
She recalled how events unfolded that Friday last August at the fairgrounds. When she came home from her job doing maintenance work at the fair, she said, "I had to finish tearing my car apart and chain my doors."

She did this work herself, but didn’t have time to complete work on the brakes; she had to make due with the emergency brakes, she said.
"Tommy was in the first heat," Tubbs recalled. "My dad was still on the bulldozer, working. I was in the last heat."
She wasn’t nervous, she said, until after she buckled up. "When I started the engine I was nervous. But then I thought, ‘I’m here to have fun with this,’ so that’s what I did."
"She backed her car right into another one, and rolled it over," said her father.
"She knows her own mind," he concluded. "We’re all proud of her."