Barbecue’s best helps local United Way agencies

BY STACI WILSON

Cook teams rolled into Lazybrook Park Thursday, a full day ahead of the seventh annual Williams Barbecue Cook-Off on Friday, Sept. 14.

“We have 39 cook teams from all over the United States,” said Tammy Bonnice of Williams Companies. The smoky smell of barbecue hit attendees before they could even reach the three tents of competitors.

Those 39 teams vied to bring home coveted wins in three categories: brisket, pulled pork and ribs. Each offered up a taste of their best offerings and made pitches to earn People’s Choice votes, and win favor with the Elite and VIP judge teams.

Sean Manzoni of Williams’ ‘Too Sauced to Pork’ pulled pork team said, “We not only have the best t-shirts, we also have the best sauce.”

He described the “mother-in-law” sauce as a family recipe coming from the mother-in-law of his “boss’s boss.”

“It’s a fantastic sauce,” Manzoni said, “He continues to make it to this day.”

S2W Contracting’s ribs brought home a win three out of the four past years, said Emmery Withee. The secret… “tender-lovin’ care” he offered, as well as maybe a bit of whiskey.

Repsol had two teams entering both pulled pork and brisket. Both teams said time on the smoker coupled with a “secret” rub were the key to their barbecue.

Repsol 2 teams Andy Tharpe said his brisket spent 13 hours on the smoker, and the rub was an “Arkansas secret” one that had been perfected over the past 20 years.

The annual cook-off serves as Williams’ fundraising event to benefit the United Way. Proceeds raised at the event benefit are matched dollar for dollar by the company and benefit United Way of Susquehanna County; United Way of Wyoming County; United Way of Wyoming Valley; and the United Way of Broome County.

Bonnice said exact totals for this year’s event are not in yet, but she expects proceeds will equal the $90,000 raised last year – leading to about a $180,000 total donation to the United Way agencies.

Winners – aside from everyone going home with bellies full of barbecue – included:

People’s Choice: Cleveland Brothers – raising over $6,000.

Elite Winners:

Brisket – Hague Equipment

Pulled Pork – Hague Equipment

Ribs – The Meat Puppets, also known as M. Davis.

VIP Winners:

Brisket – Repsol

Pulled Pork – The Meat Puppets

Ribs – The Meat Puppets.