The cold truth about GSP

By Matt Broering
Newport Central Catholic

This year the Kentucky Governor’s Scholars Program attracted 358 high school seniors from across the state for a five-week experience of learning and campus living at Bellarmine University in Louisville.
Selected for their academic records extracurricular activities, the scholars came from all corners of the state and had a wide variety of interests. There were farmers, city slickers, athletes, musicians, dancers, history buffs, math whizzes, astronomy geeks and just about anything else imaginable. But almost all of them had one thing in common.
Ice cream.
Specifically, that self-serve ice cream that oozed out of a noisy machine in the back of the cafeteria at Bellarmine. Vanilla, chocolate or twist, the incredibly addicting treat began to control the lives of otherwise intelligent people. Scholars would eat a meal, always saving room for a bowl of ice cream at the end. Sometimes, a scholar would have a salad for dinner to stay healthy, and follow the salad with a bowl of ice cream.
Scholars were even seen exercising on campus just for an excuse to eat more ice cream. Bellarmine University is set on top of a hill and many, many steps lead up to the cafeteria in Frazier Hall – a built-in exercise program.
The soft serve ice cream machine is not just a piece of cold equipment. To sugar-starved scholars it is much more than that. Some scholars have been seen talking to their ice cream serving friend, coaxing it to spill out the biggest, most delectable bowl possible.
Even the Executive Director of the Governor’s Scholars Program, Aris Cedeño, admits that there is something almost supernatural about the soft serve.
“It will give you the sugar you need to survive. It will sugar your life, your soul, and your mind. It is the soul of the cafeteria.”
Ice cream is normally a peaceful dessert, and the beloved soft serve machine in the Bellarmine cafeteria is a lover, not a fighter. But when things get tough on the machine, it can bite back. Four scholars, including this reporter, recently discovered that the hard way.
On July 8, 2011 a day which would go down in history, four scholars took their seats around a forsaken table in the cafeteria compete in the inaugural Bellarmine GSP Ice Cream challenge. Ashley Zepeda, of Martha Layne Collins High School in Shelbyville, Drew Wrinkle, of Heath High School in Paducah, Jacob Malmquist, of Bowling Green High School, and I geared up for the most grueling gastronomic challenge to date. Whichever scholar finished the most bowls of ice cream within the time limits would be crowned champion of the Bellarmine campus and gain world renown.
Malmquist was born ready for this day. “I’m pumped,” he said. “I’m ready to down some ice cream. The competition has merit, but they can’t hold me.”
Wrinkle felt much the same way: “I’m a little bloated after a day’s eating. Adrenaline will kick in and get me going. The competition is pretty weak today, and I have a second stomach in my left quadricep. I’ll eat one more bowl than my opponent.”
The first round was a breeze, with each scholar downing four bowls in less than five minutes. The second round proved too much for this reporter, who dropped out after eight bowls.
The third round, with a time limit of one minute, set the competition apart. Wrinkle and Malmquist finished three bowls in less than a minute, but Zepeda fell short. She finished her third bowl after time had elapsed, resulting in automatic disqualification.
Malmquist and Wrinkle both looked strong heading into the fourth round. Malmquist thought he had it in the bag, but Wrinkle came out strong, eating three bowls of ice cream in 20 seconds, setting a new GSP standard – and possibly a world record in that final round. Malmquist sensed the pressure and withdrew. Wrinkle was crowned GSP heavyweight ice cream champion of the world.
Despite such heroics by the best of the best in the Governor’s Scholars Program, the GSP can’t keep up with the students of Bellarmine, who pack away approximately 40 gallons of soft serve a week, according to Adam Dever, executive chef of the cafeteria.
Still, the ice cream machine remains a critical part of the GSP experience. Cedeño reminisced about a particularly nerve-racking GSP summer in 1993 at Northern Kentucky University.
“The ice cream machine saved our lives that year,” he said.