Page 8 - March 2021 Barbecue News Magazine

bbq profile
BBQ PROFILES:
Ed Shemanski
T. Michael Garrison
The Flying BBQ Judge mgarrison8@sbcglobal.net
I thought it was time to profile a Rep, a very hard working and long time Rep, in the Florida area. This individual picked up the slack when the Florida BBQ Association, FBA, found themselves seriously short of reps. Some due to medical issues, some deceased, some retired, and other rea- sons, and he individually had to pickup the slack and serve as Lead Rep for almost all of FBA’s
contests in both 2019 and 2020. He was serving as Lead Rep almost every weekend through the Winter months. He was also serving as Vice President of FBA at this same time and that was a very time-consum- ing position. For those of us in Florida you know I am profiling Ed Shemanski this month. He has given back so much to competition BBQ in Florida and more recently it has almost consumed him. Ed is also a certified Judge in KCBS, FBA and SCA. When not serving as a Rep Ed cooks with a highly successful Florida BBQ team, so he has experi- enced that aspect of competition as well. In addition to all of this I have judged with Ed at the American Pie
Council competition, as well, so he judges more than just BBQ. Ed also is the IT Committee Chair for FBA, keeping the computer systems up and running to support the con- test results. He has helped numerous event organizers put together successful contests, been involved with the judge training classes, and simply gets involved wherever it is
necessary. He started out cutting grass as the local sewage treatment plant. From there he moved up to shutting off people’s water when they didn’t pay their bills. Some pretty basic jobs where you learn a lot about people. Today Ed’s profes- sion is with computers and he serves as Enterprise IT Infrastruc- ture Manager for the Ninth Circuit Court of Florida.
Ed was raised and still lives in the Orlando area. Early in his life his best friend worked at a Sonny’s BBQ, in 1983, and this was probably his first exposure to BBQ. Although restaurant BBQ it certainly was BBQ. While living in the Oviedo area, in his younger years, Ed and his roommates decided to throw a party at their home. His neighbor,
Howard Cheats, asked him what he was going to cook for the party. They hadn’t given any thought to food. Howard was an experienced Pitmaster and convinced them that they should cook a whole hog. After determining how many people would be there Howard picked out the proper size hog and ordered it for them. That was the end of Howard’s involvement. He told Ed there is the hog, there is the pit, and here is how you cook a whole hog. Ed had never cooked anything this involved but followed his instructions and it came out pretty good. Everyone at the party enjoyed the hog, Ed was somewhat stunned, but the evening was a success. This was probably his first exposure to really seri- ous cooking over open fire, and thus BBQ. He then bought
BarbecueNews.com - 8
MARCH 2021