PHOTOS BY JENNIFER COLTON
The Umatilla County Fair wouldn’t be the same without its fair foods, and, on Wednesday, that included a buffet of barbecue.
The annual Back Yard BBQ Contest pits the area’s best amateur barbecuers against each other in a taste test for cash prizes and a wood pellet smoker. Six teams competed this year, each presenting a panel of judges four dishes: onion, potato, lamb and beef tri-tip.
Each competition division represents an event sponsor:
Potato – Blue Mountain Potato Growers & Oregon Potato Commission
Onion – River Point Farms
Beef Tri-tip – Beef NW, Cenex Harvest States, Fiesta Foods & the Umatilla County Cattleman’s Association
Lamb – Oregon Sheep Commission
On Wednesday, first-timers took most of the first-place prizes, including Happy Canyon Barbecue, which took first-place overall. The judges voted the three-man team – Johnny Pimentel and Ray Baker of Hermiston, and Corey Neistadt of Pendleton – into the top slot in the onion, potato and beef tri-tip categories.
“It feels great,” Baker said. “We didn’t really expect this. This is our first time, but we barbecue, and the kids are already showing here, so we figured, ‘why not?’ ”
“It’s a little different,” Miller said of the contest. “Oh, yeah, we’ll be back again.”
Across the stage, another team with a similar name – BS BBQ – was putting the finishing touched on their own dish, slicing and prepping for the deadline. The Hermiston team stepped into the competition at the last minute after the death of a friend.
“We’re doing this in his honor,” Mike Simon said. “This is his spot, and we want to make him proud.”
The team earned second-place in both protein divisions. But the newcomers did not take home all the titles on Wednesday as experienced teams Grillin’N’Chillin’ and the Patterson Boys each expanded their award-winning rosters.
The Patterson Boys – Tom Watts, Bob Crow and Corey Ashbeck – were competing in the Backyard BBQ cook-off for the third time with a creativity theme, bringing onion pizza and twice-baked potato cupcakes to the table.
“We’ve tried, for the last three years, to do things other people wouldn’t do, a little off the wall,” Watts said. “This is a lot of fun. No one here is a professional by any means. We’re all backyard cooks.”
The team has taken home first-place awards twice in the past and added a third to their roster on Wednesday when they received first-place in the lamb category.
Umatilla County Fair Backyard BBQ Competition Results
Overall winner: Happy Canyon BBQ
Onion
First – Happy Canyon BBQ
Second – B&S BBQ
Third – Grillin N Chillin
Potato
First – Happy Canyon BBQ
Second – B&S BBQ
Third – Grillin N Chillin
Tri-tip
First – Happy Canyon BBQ
Second – BS BBQ
Third – Third-degree Burns and B&S BBQ (tie)
Lamb
First – Patterson Boys
Second – BS BBQ
Third – Third-Degree Burns
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