BULLHEAD CITY – The Rotary Club of Bullhead City has held the 10th Annual Slab-o-rama. Numerous barbequing teams from as far away as Canada participated in the four-day event in Rotary Park. This is the “first in the nation” of several preliminary contests to qualify for the American Royal, World Series of Barbecue held each year in Kansas City, Missouri.
Numerous Rotarians spend countless hours planning and carrying out the work to get this event done. The City of Bullhead Rotary President Patty Stewlow talks about the history of the Slab-o-Rama and what it takes to put it on each year.
“This event started 10 years ago … our tenth anniversary. It started here at Rotary Park. We have a huge team of Rotarians that come down and put it all together. We have a leader … T’shura Elias that pretty much spearheads the whole event. And we all step in and help. We all have different designations of what we need to do.”
Stewlow continued, “This is an annual event for the Kansas City Barbecue Competition. This is the first qualifying event for the year, which is our event in January. We have teams from all over the United States and outside of the country come and compete. So, if they qualify, then they go onto other competitions and every event they show up to, they can earn more money.”
The $25,000 purse is certainly a big part of everything but Jim Goff of Pork Bombin’ BBQ talks about how he started and what is a big part of these events to him.
“We started out in our backyard. And then we went and purchased a smoker about three years ago, did our first competition, and really loved the community, and from that point we were hooked. We just love the community, the people, the camaraderie. We just love every bit about it.”
This reporter felt that sounded like a lot of fun so went looking for some inside tips to be able to win a contest. Tim Ward of Mega Smoke Barbecue seemed friendly enough so was asked for his secret recipe to get those ribs just perfect.
Ward smiled and replied, “Not a chance. If I told you, I’d really have to kill you.”
Allen Scott
