Pie eaters defend title in contest

A yearly highlight of the Huckleberry Festival is the pie eating contest. Twenty-five contestants competed in four age groups. The youngest age group, which included contestants ages 7 and under, were each given a quarter of a pie to try and finish. Aria Komarec, age 5, and Luca Komarec, age 5, both of Otsego, Minnesota, tied for first place.

The second round, ages 8to 12, had six contestants. Emcee Ray Brown asked contestant Christian Peterson, age 10 of Missoula, if he was hungry prior to the contest starting. A solid “no” was given as his answer, giving the audience a good chuckle before the children donned their trash bag aprons and were given their choice of pie. Peterson must have been hungry after all as he tied for first place with Tamara Dyk, age 7, of Manhattan.

Ages 13 to 17 competed next and were given half a pie to devour. Ben White, age 14 of Victor, won last year’s contest at the Huckleberry Festival and came back to defend his title. White competed against four other contestants before winning the contest for the second year in a row.

The last and final competition, ages 18 and up, had so many contestants sign up that another table needed to be added to seat everyone. Dave Brabo from Trout Creek took a seat at the very end of the table before telling Brown he was last year’s pie eating champion. Nine contestants were given a whole pie to finish. Unfortunately those pies were still a little frozen, giving the contestants another hurdle to jump over. They did get to choose the flavor of their choice, of course. There was no time limit given. Whoever finished the whole pie and kept it down, would win the contest. It was a close call, but once again, Brabo finished first.

“It was well attended and it was neat that there were alot of enthusiastic participants,” Brown said. “It made me smile and I had fun seeing the crowd’s reactions to what goes down and what didn’t come back up.” Brown said he ran into a few of the contestants after the contest and had a chance to see how they were feeling. “They had a sense of satisfaction with a limit of regret,” he said. “But they also had a glistening smile, which let me know that they will be back next year.”