A big thank-you to the organizers of this year’s Reynolds Rib O’Rama, Reynolds (N.D.) Community Betterment, for inviting me to be one of their six judges. I’ve judged chili, pie, ugly dog contests and more but never a rib contest. (To be clear, the ugly dog contests were not cooking events.)

Reynolds’ beautiful city park was filled with cooking teams and equipment Saturday night, not to mention throngs of hungry people. A few drops of rain never hurt anybody.

The smell for ribs being smoked alone was worth the price of admission. Actually, there was no price of admission and for a couple of bucks, people could sample ribs, baked beans and much more, like chicken nachos and bacon-wrapped jalapenos.

In some ways, rib judging is an unenviable task. Be honest, how many bad ribs have you eaten in your life? Judging can be an embarrassment of riches, too much too soon.

We also tasted five samples of baked beans. My only complaint of the evening, the bean samples were a bit on the smallish size. FYI: I heard no complaints from judge Marilyn Hagerty about the paper napkins or the plastic forks.

Here is a list of this year’s winners posted on the group’s Facebook page.

Beans
1st Place: Larry’s Tasty Bones.
2nd Place: Dean Lazur.
3rd Place: Double W’s.
People’s Choice: Jim Ivers.