Champion pitmaster is Penn College’s latest Visiting Chef

The latest edition of Pennsylvania College of Technology’s Visiting Chef Series featured one of Lycoming County’s own: Chef George E. Logue III, a 2010 Penn College culinary arts graduate, a member of the reigning World Barbecue Championship team, and co-owner of Herman & Luther’s, just north of Montoursville.

During Penn College’s Visiting Chef Series, first held in 1992, distinguished chefs spend several days on campus, mentoring students in the college’s baking and culinary program and working alongside them to produce the elegant Visiting Chef Dinner in Le Jeune Chef Restaurant, a live-learning laboratory for students.

“Our Visiting Chef dinners bring a new level of experiences for our hospitality students, as well as funding the Visiting Chef scholarship,” said Chef Frank M. Suchwala, associate professor of hospitality management/culinary arts. “Our recent distinguished alumni, George Logue, who is successful in multiple areas of our industry, educated students with hands-on experiences in both front-of-the-house as well as back-of-the-house activities. The event always is such a great experience not only for students but for faculty, staff and the community as well. A big thank you to George.”

This year’s sold-out event featured Logue’s smoked Southern barbecue style, with 14-hour oak-smoked brisket among the courses.

“George Logue is a fantastic chef, and I am very grateful for the opportunity to work with him during the Visiting Chef dinner,” said Kendal L. Johnson, who plans to complete an associate degree in baking & pastry arts in December and continue toward a bachelor’s in applied management. “He has done some incredible work, from his time at Penn College to Food Network competitions and to running his establishment today in Montoursville.”

As Johnson and her classmates prepared a variety of Logue’s signature breads for the dinner, the chef shared his tips.

“He demonstrated to my class his technique of baking off his flatbread that was topped with rosemary, sea salt and oil. George Logue is an incredible chef with an inspiring story, and I am grateful for the opportunity of working alongside him,” she repeated.

When Logue was a Penn College student, he, too, participated in preparing Visiting Chef dinners, and he gained as much industry exposure as he could, working locally at Franco’s Lounge, 33 East and Orlando’s, and completing a summer internship at Judy’s on Cherry in downtown Reading.

“I wanted to work in fine dining in a big city,” the Cascade Township native said. “But one day, my father approached me with an opportunity to open a Southern-style barbecue restaurant in Williamsport.”

The father-son duo of Herman and George Logue opened Acme Barbecue on Williamsport’s Market Street during Logue’s final semester at Penn College. The first restaurant in the area to offer smoked Southern-style barbecue, Acme quickly gained a following. “In May of 2010, I had to take a day off from our busy weekend rush to graduate magna cum laude,” Logue recalled.

Soon, he accepted an invitation to help Chef Brad Orrison as he competed in the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest in Memphis, Tennessee. Thirteen years, four whole-hog championships and three grand championships later, he is a pitmaster on The Shed Barbecue team.

Logue has also competed in a Steak Cookoff Association event in Mississippi, where he came in first in the turkey and best bite categories, earning a spot at the association’s World Championship cookoff in Fort Worth, Texas. In 2018, he was invited to compete on the Cooking Channel’s “Fire Masters” show, coming in second in his episode.

In 2014, Logue and his father purchased a 1700s-era stone barn and created Herman & Luther’s, a wedding and event venue that has since hosted more than 250 weddings, plus other celebrations and corporate events, and that serves lunch throughout the week.

It’s a long way from his first restaurant cooking experience: following an infographic to cook chili at Wendy’s. Drawn both to the outdoors and the arts, the teen wrote a paper in his junior year at Montoursville Area High School about architecture, then never thought about the field again.

He instead enrolled at West Chester University of Pennsylvania in business management, as well as the Army National Guard. When he learned his National Guard unit would be deployed to Iraq in early 2005, he questioned what he really wanted to do when he returned.

“Food Network was beginning to grow in popularity at the time,” Logue said. “I knew this because it had permanent airtime at my family’s household.”

Logue and his father, who’d been blackening chicken in a cast iron pan for years, started taking an interest in Southern-style barbecue.

“Culinary arts was calling my name,” said Logue, who enrolled at Penn College following his mission as a gunner in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle in Ramadi, Iraq. “I started my first year of culinary school in August 2006 and was immediately hooked. Coming from almost two years of full-time Army experience made the transition into the school very easy. The discipline needed to take on 10-hour labs, attention to detail, study, schoolwork, etc., was surprisingly in line with my time on deployment.”

He recalls being excited to work with visiting chefs.

“I looked up to them because of their success in the industry,” Logue said. “Their passion for the cuisines and menus they created made working with them even more rewarding. I never imagined that one day I would be the visiting chef. Words can’t describe how much it meant to me to be invited. It was such an honor to return to the school that helped lay the foundation for my career. Going into it, I was eager to work with the students, and by the end, I was truly impressed by their work ethic, enthusiasm and excitement in helping bring my menu to life.”

Chef Amanda L. Farr-Lepper, a fellow Penn College graduate who now is an assistant professor of culinary arts at the college, knows the lasting impact Logue’s gift of time and talent will have on the students he mentored.

“I remember fondly the experiences I had working with the visiting chefs during my time as a student,” Farr-Lepper said. “The involvement these students have working side by side with distinguished chefs through the Visiting Chef Series will be memories that last a lifetime. The experience makes them more capable and confident in industry. Chef George Logue worked side by side with students and staff and presented a delicious meal for guests; I wholeheartedly believe that all stakeholders benefit from the Visiting Chef Series.”

To learn more about hospitality majors at Penn College, call 570-327-4505. Visit the Visiting Chef Series site to learn more.

For information about Penn College, a national leader in applied technology education, email the Admissions Office or call toll-free 800-367-9222.