Bloomfield grad to be on national TV on Tuesday

Sawyer Sparks (Greene County Daily World file photo)

Sawyer Sparks will appear on the ABC network show "Shark Tank" on Tuesday at 8 p.m. EST in an attempt to convince a panel of judges to financially back his invention -- a soy-based modeling dough product. The show will air locally on WRTV-Channel 6 from Indianapolis.

Click below to view a television spot for the upcoming episode:

Sparks, the 22-year-old son of Ron and Sue Sparks and a 2005 graduate of Bloomfield Junior-Senior High School, was selected in a nationwide search by show producers who hope to discover the next successful -- and possibly wealthy -- entrepreneurs, inventors, dreamers, promoters, creators, and innovators.

Sparks told the Greene County Daily World that he went to California in early August to film the soon-to-be-televised episode.

He is prohibited because of contractual show regulations from discussing the outcome of next week's episode, but said the experience was a good one for him.

Sparks' message to the investor sharks on Tuesday's show will be a simple one -- he wants to open a manufacturing facility in Greene County for his soy-dough product.

"I really want to convince then to invest in my business so I can create jobs in Greene County," Sparks told the Greene County Daily World in a telephone interview Friday afternoon from West Lafayette.

"It (the show) is really intense."

Sparks said part of his pitch during the show will be to convince the investor to take him seriously as a college student and an entrepreneur.

"I really can do both," he said.

Sparks pointed out that his start-up business model has the company creating about 15 jobs initially to meet the market demand, but he needs investment capital to do that.

The Purdue student got a taste of larger size production in August when he rented the kitchen facility at the Greene County Cooperative Extension Service at the fairgrounds and hired a crew of 15, who worked all week to fill a massive order.

"The people at the 4-H grounds were great to help me out," he said.

In each Shark Tank episode, budding entrepreneurs are given the chance to make their business ideas come true.

The entrepreneurs will be asked to pitch their breakthrough business concepts, products, properties and services to moguls in hopes of landing investment funds. If selected, five real-life, tough investors could be willing to part with their own hard-earned cash and provide the funding needed to jump start their business idea.

But the investors, also known as "Sharks," aren't just out to invest. They too have a goal -- to own a piece of the big ideas.

Soy-Yer Dough, the first and only patented wheat-free modeling dough, was inspired by one of Sparks' favorite Purdue professors and her daughter, who both suffer from Celiac disease, a wheat allergy.

Sparks revealed that his new modeling dough compound was actually the result of a beer making project that surfaced when one of his professors at Purdue told him that she couldn't drink beer because an intolerance to wheat gluten. It was also the result of an effort to find a modeling compound that the professor's daughter could enjoy.

As a result Sparks and two college buddies began to experiment to see if they could make a gluten-free beer for their lager deprived professor.

Sawyer's mother, Sue, who works as a receptionist at Bloomfield Elementary School, told the Greene County Daily World on Friday that she is very excited about this opportunity for her son.

"He's doing a lot of things right now. This has been exactly what he wanted to do. We are all very excited for him," she said while confessing her most immediate joy is the fact that Sawyer is a senior at Purdue and preparing to graduate.

Soy-Yer Dough is already available to the public. It is being used in many schools and also is available for organizations to use as a fundraiser.

The product can be purchased for $2 at http://www.soy-yer.com.