GILLETTE, Wyo. - When Andre Freygang finishes school, he'll be able to design cell phones, set up telecommunication networks and make white gravy.

Pedro Molina, 20, will be qualified to program computer systems and serve hot, crispy french fries.

And Fernanda Fiqueiredo, 21, will know how long to frost a frosty root beer mug. Oh, and she might negotiate tricky diplomatic relationships among nations.

Welcome to KFC, Long John Silvers or any number of service-oriented businesses around booming Wyoming.

May these overqualified, aspiring professionals take your order, please? Wyoming's burgeoning economy has left a vacuum in the work force of many small businesses, particularly in the food-services industry.

How is a fast-food restaurant supposed to keep workers who can make twice as much money in energy or construction? Do what Gillette's KFC, Long John Silvers/A&W and several other restaurants around the state have done: Hire foreign students.

"I think the reasons are fairly obvious. We just cannot attract enough employees to fill all the vacancies," said Joe Oleinik, who owns KFC and the combined A&W/Long John Silver's restaurant in Gillette. He brought 16 Brazilian students to Gillette this winter to work in his two restaurants.

Juliane Corbari, 21, of Francisco Beltras, Brazil, is studying food engineering. That means everything to do with food before you eat it - pasteurization, preservation, production. (Maybe someday she'll be working on new fast-food innovations. But she doubts it.) Like all these students, the chance to work in the United States is a chance to earn extra money. More important, it improves their English.

She'd wanted to work in Naples, Fla. She'd never heard of Wyoming. She packed flip-flops.

But Naples isn't facing an extreme worker shortage. Wyoming is.

The state added 12,800 jobs in 2006, most in minerals and construction, according to the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services. But that has left a vacuum in service-oriented business as workers have left for larger paychecks. Small businesses, especially in food services, are trying to keep enough workers to serve growing communities.

Those industries start wages at $18 or more per hour. Food and other service industries pay half that.

To find workers, the service industry had to get creative.

Oleinik sits on the Wyoming Lodge and Restaurant Board. Other towns were facing the same worker shortage as Gillette.

He learned of special student visas that allow workers to come to the United States for a few months at a time. A total of 40 Brazilian students came to work in Wyoming - 16 in Gillette, eight in Riverton, 12 in Rock Springs and six in Cheyenne.

"They are just such nice people that they overcome the language barrier just by enthusiasm," he said.

Of course there was a learning curve. Like telling the difference between extra crispy (extra crocante) and original recipe (receita original). Or that flip-flops don't mesh well with Wyoming winters.

Corbari didn't know about blizzards. She wore her flip-flops on the plane and, eventually, on the bus that would drive them to Gillette. That was December - in the middle of the storm that shut down Denver International Airport.

"I (had) never seen the snow. For me, I think it's so nice," she said. "But it is very cold."