By Brenda Hankla

The Beaver Dam Bar hosted their 32nd Annual Chili Cook Off this past Saturday night. Tee shirts were available to purchase to help commemorate the event.  This event drew people from as far away as Mesquite, Nevada and St. George, Utah, which is a testament as to how much fun this event really is.

The evening started off with the anticipation of who would be crowned as the Chili Cook Off Champion for this year. Then the crock pots started rolling in and the air filled with the delicious aromas of home cooked chili.

Finally it was time for the judging to begin.  But first there had to be judges.  Everyone that was interested in judging put their names into the pot and 5 names were drawn.

The lucky 5 had the privilege of getting first taste of those wonderful chilis.  Judging took a while as the judges asked for another taste of some of them as they began to narrow it down.  Finally a winner had been selected.

The top three were given a free tee shirt and they also won cash prizes

First Place-Mel

Second Place-Victoria

Third Place-Jamie

Judges:  Janice, April, David, Jeff and Larry

Finally, it was time for us patrons to taste all of that wonderful chili.  There was bread and crackers to add if you wanted to. And I have to agree with the judges that I liked Mel’s the best.

Photo by Brenda Hankla

But the fun was only beginning.  The band Vinyl Fusion played 4 sets of music which spanned the 50’s, 60’s 70’s and 80’s.  The music was awesome and the dance floor was full.  It’s obvious that the crowd enjoyed their music as much as I did.

There was a nice camp fire outside if you wanted to enjoy the wonderful November night weather.  The talk of the night revolved around who had won and did we think it was the best.  And of course, we had to talk about the lawnmower races, which had run earlier in the day and how great it was that they had started up again.

Don’t forget to mark your calendars for the first Saturday in November 2022, so you are ready to enter your own secret recipe chili into the 33rd annual Chili Cook Off competition.

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