Frank Leake, a professor of culinary arts at Kapiolani Community College, has won the Sharing Culinary Traditions Award.

Issued by the American Academy of Chefs, the honor society of the American Culinary Federation, the award goes to a member for dedication to the education of future culinarians. Leake received the award at the 2011 ACF National Convention in Dallas last month.

"This recognition is far reaching and meaningful in many ways and at many different levels," Leake said.

Leake, who has taught at KCC since 1989 and is a 1974 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in New York, is the author of "Coaching Culinary Champions" (seriouslyono press, 2008).

He named the late chef Joe Amendola as his mentor for more than 37 years and said the rewards of teaching are in the outcome as well as what he learns through mentoring.

"Mentoring provides a ‘circle of life’ if you will," he said, "the perpetuity of teaching and learning."

Leake’s teaching philosophy is based on a quote from Leonardo da Vinci: "The master whose student does not surpass him has failed."