Boone County Fair BBQ Contest 1989

Boone County Fair always happened in late July, as I remember it. My dad and Gene would park our campers in the makeshift campground next to the fairgrounds, and Jill and I would stay there all week with our dads. I think that Jacque, Brad and Matt had either sports, jobs or girlfriends to tend to and usually didn't stay over night, nor did Janet or Berta. Our 4-H club always staked out territory under a particular tree on the East end of the fair grounds, in front of the swine, sheep and poultry barns. We parked our lawn chairs there and hung out all week.

I remember the first year that the fair had a barbeque contest. They held the event on the grassy area in front of the poultry barn, right across the little road from our shade tree. Only one contestant showed up. I guess that Gene decided to give the guy a little competition and enter the contest. Now this guy was a serious competitor and experienced in the art of setting up a nice stage for his food. He had a fancy grill, a small table with a tablecloth and chair, candles burning, a vase of flowers, a weathervane he put up for the ambiance, I guess, steaks, beans, potatoes, lettuce, tomato, pickles and I don't remember what else to eat.

Every time this guy would come back from his car with something new, we would try to figure out what we had to add to Gene's display. We ended up with hot dogs, split down the middle with sliced cheese melted in the slit. Someone got pickle relish from the concession stand, and we had ketchup and mustard, but I remember trying to mix things together to make a special sauce to compete with the other guy's deburgo sauce on the steak. We had a folding card table and a lawn chair and one of the 4-H parents who was a smoker donated a lighter to set on the table in lieu of a candle. We picked a few dandelions and stuck them in a styrofoam cup. The other guy even had a printed menu of what he was serving. We hand wrote a menu on a piece of note paper and tried to come up with a fancy name for hot dogs. I think we went with "tube steak." Gene did not have a fancy apron or chef hat like the other guy, but he did wear a paper hat (like the meat counter guys wear at the grocery store) from the concession stand.

The fair board had apparently planned on a big crowd as they had trophies for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. Gene was honored with the second place trophy! The next year there were 15 people there for the BBQ competition, all of them with the fancy decorations and stuff. But for the inaugural Boone County Fair barbeque competition, my Uncle Gene was the runner up!!