“I was pretty shocked. I knew we had a good project, but I didn’t know we were the best one,” said packaging senior Sean Hannah. “There was a lot of tough competition out there.”

The rest of the team was made up of packaging seniors Tyler Nunnold and Matt Gallinger and packaging junior Taylor Thompson.

The team first came up with the name Lone Star Whiskey and the bottle and label designs came out of that theme, Nunnold said.

Thompson said the team wanted to have a manly, burly drink, which helped them develop something with a Southern feel.

Three team members currently are doing internships at out-of-state packaging companies. Nunnold and Thompson said competition win is a big résumé booster and good talking point at career fairs and internship interviews.

“As far as a résumé builder, it’s the best thing I’ve done,” Nunnold said.

As part of their winnings, team members took a trip to Verallia, a glass container manufacturer in Indiana, where they met people in the industry and were introduced to the idea of selling the Lone Star Whiskey concept.

“As soon as we started showing it to people they started saying we should try to sell it,” Hannah said. “I’d love to get it sold.”

If it works out, Nunnold said they could sell it to a company in Texas for thousands of dollars.

“It was a great networking opportunity and that helps you a lot more than knowing a name if you‘re trying to go into the industry,” Nunnold said.

The groups in the competition had eight weeks to come up with their design and heard presentations from industry representatives.

“It really makes a difference to have knowledgeable, experienced people talk to our students,” said Dennis Young, a teaching specialist in the School of Packaging who organized the competition, in a statement.