The aroma of

freshly baked gingerbread spiked with a hint of peppermint scented the

third grade hall at Huddleston Elementary School Friday as students assembled

A-frame gingerbread houses, and painting them with snow white icing and

silvery sprinkles.

Gingerbread

construction 101 has become a tradition at Huddleston, and an anticipated

activity among lower classmen. First graders in Debbie Warren's class

snaked slowly around the desks of the amateur architects in Marcie McDuffie's

room, admiring the holiday confections in the works. The third grade "tour

of homes" seemed nothing short of spectacular to the young observers,

given the pounds of candy scattered on desks.

Volunteer moms

and dads kept busy whipping up the icing, which served as the mortar for

the gingerbread, as the kids spread it carefully with their popsicle-stick

trowels.

After 90 minutes

of mixing, spreading and assembling row upon row of gumdrops, vanilla

wafers, pretzels and chocolate blocks, the modest cottages were transformed

into millionaire mansions suitable for Candyland's Licorice Lane or the

owner's family holiday table.

The gingerbread

project was initiated in the late 1980s by Sandra Martin, a third grade

teacher at Oak Elementary. Liz Fitch, a Huddleston teacher who worked

with Martin, carried the plans with her when she transferred.

According to

Fitch, baking gingerbread and constructing the houses was something Martin

had learned while teaching on post during her husband, Jim's, career in

the military. She prompted her new colleagues to introduce it in their

classes, and the rest is history. The teachers first discovered Tendick's

Bakery in Riverdale could provide the ready-baked gingerbread sheets.

"So Jim

Martin went over to Riverdale in his red pick-up truck and delivered 100

16X24-inch sheets of gingerbread to the school cafeteria," Fitch

said. After cutting the pieces into sections for each child, the teachers

arranged them on the classroom desks. "We jacked the heat up to 85

degrees to dry it out and in the morning the gingerbread was like cold

toast," she recalled.

Little has

changed over the years, except the gingerbread source has located closer

to school, with owner Jorg Schatte closing Tendick's and opening the City

Cafe and Bakery in Fayetteville, and teachers have shortened construction

time from more than three hours to just under two, thanks to premixed

icing.

A near crisis

was avoided late Thursday when Fitch discovered the gingerbread slabs

had not quite hardened to construction calibre. Quick action on the part

of Huddleston's third grade teachers saved the day. The sheets were packed

up and transported to school and home ovens for a second toasting; just

enough to make the bread firm enough for Friday's fun.

The result

was another year of creative confections and a happy, sugar-buzzed grade

of decorators.

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