EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE: Flour Power

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Friendly competition between your coworkers is good stuff! It builds bonds. But there’s a lady in the Port City who is rolling over her competition. Marcelina Ramirez rises like a made-from-scratch biscuit. She showed us her flour power that makes her our Extraordinary Person of the Week.

Photo: Only 8 employees out of SC/NC make it to these finals.

“She’s been with us, for I think, 4 years. This is the 3rd time she went, 2nd in a row,” co-worker Joy McLawhorn said.

It is the 2nd year in a row that Marcelina Ramirez ‘made’ her way to the 19th annual Bojangles Master Biscuit Maker Challenge….’from scratch’.
You see what I did there? She ‘made her way from scratch’.
Okay, my joke *kneads a little help. But this camera shy, rollin’ pin machine can butter up this kitchen at 7155 Market Street like no other.

Just ask her colleague, Joy McLawhorn. “It’s nice to know we’ve got a master biscuit maker in Wilmington,” McLawhorn said.

So here’s how Marcelina whipped up three trips to the finals in 4 years….

First, a little in-store summer competion. “They all just have fun,” McLawhorn said, “get excited and want to know who is the best of the best.”

Then they compete against other Bojangles in the immediate area.

“It’s a 48 step process to be the winner,” McLawhorn said. McLawhorn is the Unit Director for the Bojangles on Market St and served as Marcelina’s spokeswoman since she was a lil’ nervous about talking on camera(but put the ingredients in her hand and she gets those biscuits going!!!).

Only eight company owned biscuit makers in the Carolinas *measure up for a trip to the Research and Development Kitchen in Charlotte each year where the finals are held.

You gotta rise like a biscuit to get the honor of making the finals. Judges grade on appearance, color, and come on…ya know they are going to take a bite to see how it taste!!!

And while Marcelina didn’t win this year, she sure won the love and support of her coworkers in the process and she cooked up back to back years in the biscuit making finals. So she’s knows her dough! Her flour power is ‘Extraordinary’.

Heather Sparrow of the Bojangles in Lumberton was also one of the eight finalist. A man from Myrtle Beach took home the top honor.
For more information on the competition, click here.

If you know an extraordinary person, let me know about them!  Email me at dseamans@wwaytv3.com

-Daniel