Wing Fling for FHS business class set

Farragut High School Virtual Enterprise business class invites the community to its inaugural fundraising event, Wing Fling.

It takes place from 1 to 5 p.m., Saturday, April 6, in the senior parking lot of Farragut High School, 11237 Kingston Pike. Event sponsors are Kohl’s, Sno Cream, Outback Steakhouse and Doctors Management.

The organizing team of FHS students, junior Taylor Higginbotham and seniors Mandy Huynh and Thomas Mathis, came up with the idea to host the community-based festival.

Plans are going well, Higginbotham said. “I’m very excited about the event.”

“It’s a great event for the community,” Mathis said.

Wing Fling is completely student run, Higginbotham said.

“I think that it’s probably the first thing that we’ve done for the school for a while,” Mathis added.

The team made the executive decisions on the festival, then ran those decisions by their teacher, Brad Smith.

“We created everything for it,” Higginbotham said. “Our teacher went to (Middle Tennessee State University), and its sorority does a giant version of this. So we thought we could do a smaller, more community event.”

“There is one downtown as well,” Huynh said.

“Basically, this is just a festival centered around chicken wings,” Higginbotham said. “We’ll have a bunch of vendors

come in, and they’ll be able to market their products.

“We will have a taste testing of wings from vendors, and we will have games for people to play,” she said.

There also will be raffle prizes, such as a TV and free wings for a year from Wild Wing Café, and competitions such as recognizing “best wings.”

Advance tickets are $10 for students and $12 for non-students.

Prices for tickets purchased the day of the event will increase: $12 for students and $15 for non-students.

Students in the Virtual Enterprise class also will sell tickets during lunch in the school.

To purchase tickets, or for more information, call Taylor at 865-454-2529, Smith at 865-558-7770 or Huynh at 865-719-4320.

“Currently we are doing pre-orders,” Huynh said, adding advance tickets can be purchased at the school store, Admiral Outlet, which is student-run and falls under the Virtual Enterprise umbrella.

“Students design all their own T-shirts, all the merchandise that is there,” Higginbotham said. “They sell tickets and stuff there.”

The second VE business,

Bluetip, is a virtual online program that competes with other virtual businesses, she added.

Proceeds from the festival will go toward the class’ Youth Business Summit trip to New York April 14-17, where FHS students will compete against other Virtual Enterprise classes from around the world at a conference.

Students are hoping to make Wing Flings an annual event. “We’re hoping to bring together the community of Farragut.” Huynh said.

“It’s something the community doesn’t have, like this, so we thought it would be kind of cool for people to come,” Higginbotham said.