Page 14 - Barbecue News June 2020 Issue

Well, it’s May and BBQ has not really gotten started up here in the northland. We had to make changes as most are aware due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The first thing affected was Spring Training, which had to be can- celed. At this time, we are working with the University of Minnesota to get things lined up for next year. Look for more information as we get details put together.
That brings us to the Minnesota in May Contest. Again, with the continual updates and changes concerning Covid-19 it was un- known whether we would be allowed to hold the contest. The contest committee made the recommendation to postpone it until August 28-29-2020. After
much discussion the board has moved the contest, now known as “Minnesota in MayAugust” to 8/28-29. The contest committee continues to monitor all of the Covid-19 recommen- dations. Watch for updates on mnbbqsociety.com, Facebook, and Instagram.
By John Scharffbillig
I went online to try and find a BBQ contest and here is the first thing I saw on the Google page: “Event information may be out of date due to the coronavirus (COVID-19). Confirm details with event organizers.” Things are changing faster than even Google can track! It is going to be a very different kind of BBQ season this year!
Minnesota and Iowa BBQ Society presidents were chatting, and expressed a desire to rekindle the Border Battle. Of course, this included a fair amount of smack talk! It also started discussions on how to make this happen in these strange times. A few of the questions were: Is there time to make it happen this year? If so, what would that look like, what would be the format? Voila, the
Virtual Contest was born! The lead for this in Minnesota is David Ellis of Machete Boys BBQ Team. For Iowa it is Trent Vanderhei- den of Bulu BBQ. These two are the brains in back of the event, doing all of the IT magic for their organizations. They have set up everything for the contest and work with the contest Reps and
Judges to provide them with all of the details and photos to do their parts. This Virtual Contest is being sponsored by a great group of businesses and Competition teams:
Compart Family Farms, Northern Fire Grilling & BBQ
Supply, Iowa BBQ Store, BW Outdoors, Royal Oak Charcoal, Wid- mer's Super Market, Boomerang BBQTreefrog BBQ, RUB MY RACK BBQ, Hawgeyes BBQ.Com, Swamp Boys BBQ Sauces and Rubs, Whitewater BBQ, The Docfather BBQ, & Machete Boys BBQ
The results of the Virtual Contest were on Facebook Live, with the Grand Champion being announced on May 9, 2020.
BarbecueNews.com - 14
JUNE 2020