OSAGE CITY (KSNT) – Teams cooked up their best meats for this year’s Smoke in the Spring event in Osage City.
One hundred and three barbecue teams participated in the event’s 23rd year of competition. Cooks from 13 different states, including a few from Canada and even a high school team, turned out to throw down behind their grills.
One hundred and nineteen judges score each meal to see who accumulates the most points. There were over 35 volunteers helping out at this year’s event.
“I’m lucky with a lot of my volunteers have been doing this for many years. a lot of the judges choose to return year in and year out just because they have a really good experience with us,” said Smoke in the Spring organizer, Corey Linton.
People sampled from a variety of meats, enjoyed a beer garden and even got to attend a fireworks show. The winner of this event will be one step closer to the $1 million Barbecue World Cup spot.
“All the public comes out, which is always fun to see,” said the owner of Meat Rushmore, Joel Fleetwood. “A lot of times at the competition there’s, you know, it’s us and look, these are all my friends, and I consider these people like my barbecue family. But to have the public come out and just see everybody get excited about barbecue, it’s a great time.”
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“Barbeque is a big thing in the Midwest, but you can also travel outside of the Midwest to barbeque competitions also,” said owner of Topeka BBQ Shop, Terrance Jefferson. “They have them all the way up to Canada, so this is a big deal.”
Champions will be qualified for the Barbecue World Cup in Las Vegas in April of 2027 and get a chance to compete for a chance to win $1 million.
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