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Plymouth Ice Festival
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Cool coach

College champion now advises team in carving competitions

Collegiate-level carving goes way back at the Plymouth
Ice Festival, and Tyler Colman, an adjunct professor at
Oakland Community College (OCC), remembers when it
began.
“We would be carving from 11 to 2 in the morning,”
recalled Colman, who's in the culinary program at the
Orchard Ridge OCC Campus in Farmington Hills. “It was
pretty incredible what it was at one point,” including
carvers from Japan.
He's proud of his students, including returning carvers
who will compete, Gillian Tappenden and Tica Paraday. “A
pretty good track record,” said Colman about OCC students,
with some 10 national championships in the last 11 years.
Of Paraday and Tappenden, he noted, “They're much
more important than I am,” with the women training newer
student carvers.
“I more coach ice carving,” explained Colman, 31, who Returning Oakland Community Collage Ice Carving Team
began to compete in the Plymouth Ice Festival as an OCC members Gillian Tappenden and Tica Parady are expected
student. He works now with Doug Ganhs, the OCC culinary to do well in competition this year.