Anastasia Conyers, studio art sophomore, came to OCU after serving in the U.S. Navy for 20 years. She also owns her own bakery.
Q: What is your bakery’s name?
A: My bakery is called 1/2 a Stick of Butter Bakery, and I am a home baker. We are currently renovating our home to include a commercial style kitchen for me to bake out of.
Q: How did your bakery begin?
A: I retired from the Navy in 2005 and, due to allergies that I developed while stationed in Japan, I now need to cook and bake as much from scratch as possible. Along the way, others discovered that I was a scratch baker and asked for products, often resulting in the comment, “Man, you should open up your own place.” So in 2016, I did.
Q: What is your specialty? Do you have a favorite item to bake?
A: I don’t really have a specialty, although my husband would say scones and sugar cookies that have affectionately been re-named crack cookies, because you can’t eat just one. I always seem to be doing something different. Right now, I am on a cream puff kick because they’re super easy to make. But macaroons are fun to make too.
Q: How do you balance the bakery with class and schoolwork?
A: Right now, I don’t take many overflow orders. That just means I can only do one order every two weeks because I am pulling 15 credit hours. But the biggest help is my husband. He does almost everything while I’m in school, even the dishes. It’s worth it to finally get my bachelors.
Q: Are you from the Oklahoma City area?
A: I was born and raised in Wyoming, Michigan. After being gone in the Navy for 20 years, it was just too cold up there. I had made a very good friend from Midwest City who had been asking for about 10 or 12 years when was I going to leave the navy and move to Oklahoma. Be careful what you ask for.
Q: Tell me about your family. Are they involved with the bakery?
A: All total, my husband and I have eight children. One lives in Oregon, three are in Georgia, one is in South Carolina, two are in Oklahoma (our baby still lives at home – she’s 21), and one is in Texas. Our youngest often helps me with the repetitive stuff, and my husband is my delivery driver.
Q: I saw that you attended another college before OCU. How did you end up at OCU?
A: I got my associates degree from Johnson and Wales University in 2005, and I always wanted to finish up my four years and get into my baking and pastry side of cooking. Well, life happened and I ended up in Oklahoma, so I found another way to get Baking and Pastry which was at Platt College. While attending, my Veterans Affairs funding went away due to the school’s end, so I thought I would have to drop out and explore other avenues. But, because of my grades and attendance, they gave me a full scholarship. Since then, I found out that I still had all of my VA benefits, so I did some research on art schools, because, at my age, if I am going back to school, I want to do something I really like. Not to mention almost everything I am learning and getting better at directly translates to my bakery. It helps with painting with food color on cakes and cookies, sculpting cakes and chocolate and just being more artistic in my designs. I came for a visit, and the students and staff I meet pretty much sealed the deal. Here I am at OKCU.
Q: What is the next step in your career? Do you have an end goal?
A: I hope to push myself, which hopefully will help me grow as an artist, baker and businesswoman. Once I graduate and get the kitchen finished, I would like to teach cooking and baking classes. The end goal, like the dream you don’t ever think you will be good enough to achieve, is to be a member of the team Federazione Internazionale Pasticceria Gelateria Cioccolateria – USA Division. They compete internationally in food Olympics.
Q: Is there anything else you want the OCU community to know about you?
A: I guess I would like the OCU community to know I’m a foodie and I love love love to talk about cooking and baking, so, if they see me around campus, feel free to ask me questions. If I know the answer, I’ll share.
Comment below to recommend the next Feature Friday.
Leave a Reply