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Kyle Wakefield, left, a 2006 graduate of Plant City High, participated in a reality cooking show with celebrity chef Tyler Florence.
By DAVE NICHOLSON
The Tampa Tribune
PLANT CITY - Gary and Gina Blake won’t be missing any episodes of the new reality TV show “Shaq’s Big Challenge,” which began airing Tuesday night on ABC.
Their son, Kyle Wakefield, a 2006 Plant City High School graduate, was one of five student chefs who helped celebrity chef Tyler Florence on the show, featuring pro basketball player Shaquille O’Neal.
Kyle Wakefield, left, participated in a reality
TV show with celebrity chef Tyler Florence.
Photo from Gina Blake
The students were wired for sound and filmed while they worked, but the Blakes don’t know whether any video of their son will air. He didn’t appear in the first episode but the family will keep watching each week.
The show revolves around encouraging better nutrition for children.
Wakefield, 19, has long had a love and natural talent for cooking, his mother said. He is a sophomore pursuing degrees in culinary arts and food service management at Johnson & Wales University in Miami. Currently he is in Ludwigshafen, Germany, doing a summer internship cooking for BASF Corp.
While he’s in school, he works at Dewars 12 in Miami, where he has had the opportunity to encounter stars such as O’Neal, singers Gloria Estefan and Gladys Knight and actor David Spade.
Wakefield’s ultimate goal is to become a food and beverage director and possibly open a restaurant with a nightclub where he could show off his flair for bartending, Gina Blake said.
The Blakes are longtime residents of the area. Gina Blake, a patient access service representative for South Florida Baptist Hospital/Swindle Diagnostic Center, is a native. Her husband is a heavy equipment operator for Mosiac and has lived here since he was 9.
This isn’t the family’s first time in the spotlight. When daughter Krysteena Wakefield, 21, was about 13, they ran into the then-wildly successful boy band ‘N Sync at a Plant City truck stop on State Road 39.
A Disney crew was following the band around, and video of Krysteena and family with the pop stars aired several times on the Disney Channel.
Krysteena is a student at the University of South Florida and works as a patient access representative at South Florida Baptist’s emergency room.
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