Friends, below is a note sent to Don Adkins by Chris Furtick as he endured a Memphis in May event. It’s self explanatory but it’s nice to learn that some of our judges and cooks are appreciative of all of the efforts of the SCBA to get it right. Chris agreed that we could re-print his note. Thanks Chris. We in the SCBA really do try, and obviously, succeed.

Hey Don,

Just wanted to send you a quick note regarding Memphis in May and the stark contrast between it and the SCBA events I've judged so far.

I'm here in Memphis cooking on a team in the rib and ancillary competitions.

Turn-Ins (and judging) for ancillary competitions were today and awards were supposed to be at 6:30pm.

6:30 comes and goes and then an announcement is made that the judges are still calculating and they'll get started about 7.

7 comes and goes.

About 7:15 the emcee comes out and informal the crowd that 3 of the ancillary awards haven't been tabulated but would be posted near the judges tent at 10 pm but the rest of the awards (anything butt, sauces , etc) would be announced now.

As you might imagine the crowd was less than enthused.

Half way through the awards the emcee is interrupted and announced that there were no more awards to announce at this time.

The rest of the winners would be posted at 10 tonight.

The crowd erupts in booing etc.

I know that the SCBA judges have been taking a bit of a beating lately but I can't imagine a SCBA competition would ever be ran as ragged as today's comp.

From what I've seen thus far the SCBA marshals are head and shoulders above the organizers of this event. Granted this one is a larger scale but I've been thoroughly unimpressed in the way it's been ran.

Just thought I'd pass along observations from what I'm seeing in other parts of the BBQ community and pass along a little praise to the marshals that make the SCBA happen.

See you in a few weeks!

Chris Furtick