A year ago, the Iola High School Underhogs barbecue cookoff team was content to just soak in the atmosphere at nationals.
Iola’s lone squad took 30th out of 55 teams, and didn’t make it to the final rounds of any individual competition.
That meant “sitting around to the awards ceremony and watching other kids get medals for three hours,” their coach Doug Kerr recalled.
The second time around was a different story.
Iola’s rapidly developing culinary program took three teams to this month’s National High School BBQ Association National Championships in Gardner, where the Underhogs brought back plenty of hardware.
Last, but not least, the Underhogs “A” team of Franklin Kerr, Alston Nelson, Rohan Springer and Simon Mueller narrowly missed out on a national championship, taking second out of 90 teams in chicken preparation. The quartet also took 13th in brisket and placed 24th overall.
The Lady Underhogs — Mahala Burris, Kaylee Burris, Mary Burris and Kenleigh Westhoff — took third in the all-girls division and 16th overall. The ladies also took sixth in grilled cheese sandwiches and 12th in chili.
The Junior Underhogs, with members Joe Holding, Cameron Palmer, Drake Genoble and Shayden Thyer finished in the top 20 in ribs.
“I’m super proud of the kids and how they represented Iola,” Kerr said. “The kids saw that in our second year that we’ve gotten to that national level of competition. They have that confidence level.”
That was only part of the story.
The Underhogs also stepped in during the final day of the three-day competition when members of Operation Barbecue, which had planned to feed the contestants during the event, were called away to provide food at a disaster scene elsewhere in the country.
Operation Barbecue is a national, non-profit organization that provides food in the aftermath of natural disasters, such as the Joplin tornado, California wildfires and hurricane recovery efforts in the Southeast.
“They wanted to show the barbecue competition folks how they worked, so they were going to provide pulled pork sandwiches to 500 kids and 500 parents,” Kerr said. “It was basically a demonstration to show how quickly they could get things done.”
But with the Operation Barbecue folks unavailable, it meant there was plenty of food, but no one to serve it.
“Our team jumped in and served food to everybody,” Kerr said. “It was a really cool moment. They didn’t hesitate, and did what they needed to serve everybody.
“Out of all the reasons to be proud of the kids, I was probably most proud of that,” Kerr said. “They put service before self. They didn’t just stand around and watch.”
KERR, a long-time football coach, noted the similarities between preparing for a barbecue cookoff and other athletic events.
