Wednesday, October 29, 1997
Sonic employee named best in nation
By ROY A. JONES II / Abilene Reporter-News
SWEETWATER -- The best dresser in the United States lives here
and wears T-shirts and jeans most of the time.
Steve Lujan, 17, is likely Sweetwater's youngest national champion
in anything and isn't judged for how he dresses himself but rather
how he dresses -- or assembles -- hamburgers.
An employee of the Sonic Drive-in restaurant at 1225 E. Broadway,
the Sweetwater native blew away the competition in the National
Finals of the Dr Pepper Sonic Games at Panama City, Fla., to win
the gold medal in the Dresser competition.
In fact, Lujan dressed two hamburgers so quickly that when
a videotape of his gold medal performance was shown at Sonic's
recent national convention in Orlando, other jealous managers
around the country accused local manager Rubin Alvarez of having
the tape on fast-forward.
"It wasn't. Steve just works that fast," Alvarez
said Tuesday.
Thanks also to the bronze medal performance by Teressa Thompson
in the Fountain competition, and outstanding but non-medal performances
by four other employees, the local Sonic finished in the top five
of the nearly 1,700 Sonic drive-in restaurants in the U.S.
Other members of the championship team are Irma Alvarez, wife
of the manager, who competed in Switchboard, or service delivery;
Loraie Jennings, Carhop, or food delivery; Joseph Bugarin, Grill,
or food preparation; and Daniel Rodriguez, Swamp, or food preparation.
Although the four did not medal, each was in the top 10 in
the nation in his or her station speciality just to get to the
national finals, Rubin Alvarez said.
"My entire crew made me extremely proud," he added.
He joked that he was lucky to get them all back to Sweetwater
because the manager at the host Sonic in Panama City wanted to
hire them.
With the exception of Alvarez, none of the team members had
been on a plane before they flew to Panama City for the national
finals Oct. 21-23.
"I'd never been out of Texas except to go to Hobbs (N.M.)
once, so it was pretty exciting," Lujan said. "We got
free tickets to Disney World, too."
Under the scrutiny of several judges, Lujan was timed as he
dressed three orders of two hamburgers each. In addition to being
timed, points were deducted if the pickles, onions, lettuce and
tomatoes were not placed on neatly, or if the bun was not toasted
correctly.
On his first run, Lujan built a No. 1 (with mustard) and a
No. 2 (with mayonnaise) in 90 seconds.
"I was pretty nervous with all the people there, but Mr.
Alvarez took me outside and told me I could do better than that.
He told me to think I was doing it back at work with nobody watching,"
he said.
On his second attempt, Lujan built the two hamburgers in 1:15.
He didn't know it at the time, but that would be good enough to
beat the second place time of 1:21.
On his final run, Lujan's hands were a blur. He knew his time
was the best of the series but worried that one of the pickles
didn't unfold properly and that he would be counted off for a
second move to straighten it out. He wasn't; the judges apparently
were impressed by his attention to detail.
A yell went up when Lujan's time was announced -- a new national
finals record of 59.6 seconds, Alvarez said.
"I really think he probably does it faster than that several
times a day during our rush periods," Irma Alvarez said.
"Probably," Lujan said, blushing.
Lujan is the son of J.R. and Mary Lujan of Sweetwater. He dropped
out of Sweetwater High School to support his wife, Elizabeth,
and their five-month-old son, Steven Ryan.
Lujan joked that he helped keep Florida green. He spent the
$250 cash award that came with his gold medal on clothes for his
son and some souvenirs.
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Copyright ©1997,
Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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