Grillin & Chillin

After winning in every category in our hometown BBQ contest, I wanted to compare our skills and taste to those sanctioned events that I had been seeing on the food network. In 2005 we went down to the Opryland hotel in Nashville, Tennessee and competed in our first Kansa City Barbeque society sanctioned event. There were 53 teams from all over the south and many that I had seen on the food network. We got to see firsthand how serious America's next great sport really was. I mean this is the Nascar of cooking circuits.

With the help of Terry and Tom Stinnett we went head to head with some of the country's best cookers. We hit the learning curve pretty hard that first contest, wining 14th in the beef brisket category, considered the hardest meat to win in. But considering it was the first time we had ever cooked beef brisket and we were using someone else's smoker not too bad. What we also learned in that first competition, is that Owensboro's vinegar based style, might not be what the judges were looking for.

So we started to cater to the taste of the judges, which meant we had sweetened up our barbeque for the judges who preferred a sweeter style. After experiencing the professionalism and the high standards of a KCBS event I knew that Owensboro needed an event like this. I also felt that by founding a competition like this I could literally push Owensboro barbeque to the next level. As well as promote Boogalou BBQ to thousands of people and add to Owensboro's great BBQ tradition.

This is where the stars and moon came perfectly in alignment, by this I mean everyone I pitched the idea to, came on board and gave their support. First we needed the right location, and it just so happened that a local RV resort had just been purchased by some great folks from LA and they wanted a signature event to get people back out camping again. They agreed to host the event as well as be on the committee to oversee the event. I then got the tourist commission involved and they gave us a lot of support and some well needed guidance. At about that same time I was lucky enough to have the help of some local KCBS certified judges who educated me the about the process and what it was going to take to host a sanctioned competition. We formed a committee and went to work raising money and laying the ground work.

Our next hurdle was to get the governor to make it the Kentucky State BBQ championship, it wasn't easy but some very good political friends were able to present the idea to the governor and he declared it the Kentucky State BBQ Championship. The KCBS had already approved our event and date. When setting our date the committee thought it would be a great way to end our local BBQ season by having it in late September. We also wanted to respect our other big Barbeque tradition the BBQ Fest, so we scheduled our event at the opposite time of the season. That first year we had 48 teams from like 7 states come and actually turned down 4 teams.

The focus has always been about a quality event for the cookers and the public, so we limited it to 50 teams. Our state senator David Boswell came out welcomed the teams and our mayor Tom Watson came out and gave a speech at the awards ceremony. We got great responses from a lot of the teams, and the new tradition was started and continues today. Today the committee is constantly striving to make the event better, and does a excellent job of making everyone have a great time. And that's how it all started, so make your plans to be at Diamond Lake Resort the last weekend of every September we would love to see you there.